


you'll come back when they call you (no need to say goodbye)

by bubblelina



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pirates, Amaurotines (Final Fantasy XIV), Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Lalafell Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Multiple Warriors of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Soulmates, and when i say multiple i Mean Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 36,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26249041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblelina/pseuds/bubblelina
Summary: Pick a star on the dark horizonAnd follow the lightmy ffxivwrite2020 fills!
Relationships: Amaurotine Characters/Azem (Final Fantasy XIV), G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light, Krile Mayer Baldesion & G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, Lyna & Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch & Warrior of Light
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26
Collections: Final Fantasy Write Prompt Challenge 2020





	1. index (it started out as a feeling)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bad fanfic depot, babey!
> 
> [5.3 spoilers abound!]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **my main wol:** lunya lanya, a dunesfolk lalafellin astrologian and leader of a free company called «lode». sassy, compassionate, and a fashion icon. born to la noscean pirates and ran away from home to ul'dah. as of 5.3, she's married to g'raha tia. her ancient name was asteria and rather than being azem, she was a student to her! her carrd is available [here](https://crystaltower.carrd.co/)!
> 
>  **«balefire»:** an informal alliance in lunya's main verse, composed of over two dozen warriors of light and their adventurer friends. includes many ocs from my friends on tumblr! credits in each chapter they're mentioned in.

**1\. CRUX:** tether-a-tether || _2240 words_

> Krile & G'raha, Lunya/G'raha || Post-Reflections in Crystal   
>  "look behind you but not too obvious", or, Krile's just glad he's back.

**2\. SWAY:** listen my lover (to the beat of my love) || _1511 words_

> Lunya/G'raha | The 7th Astral Era | The Crystal Tower  
>  Lunya's affectionate and dangerous when she's had a drink. That's G'raha's problem to deal with.

**3\. MUSTER:** set your heart ablaze || _1207 words_

> Gen; Lunya & Reese || A Realm Reborn || VS Ifrit  
>  Before they became legends, Lunya and Reese were just two girls, which means you're pretty screwed when you're picked as sacrifices for a beast tribe's god.

**4\. CLINCH:** will you catch me if i should fall? || _1248 words_

> Lunya/G'raha || Circus AU || Established relationship  
>  It's a trust exercise and it is _not_ an appropriate time to be lovey-dovey.

**5\. MATTER OF FACT:** come morning light || _1452 words_

> Gen; Lyna & Lunya, mentioned Lunya/G'raha || Post-Reflections in Crystal  
>  You deserve better from him than a not-really-goodbye and a world of troubles.

**6\. EPHEMERAL (extra credit):** hold back the river || _870 words_

> Gen; Honoka, Kotone, & Hanami || Post-Under the Moonlight  
>  There's more than one kind of battlefield to fight on.

**7\. NONAGENARIAN:** act your age || _826 words_

> Gen; Various OCs & Leveilleur twins & G'raha Tia || Post-Reflections in Crystal  
>  Viera lifespans are weird, and so are Lalafellin physical maturity rates.

**8\. CLAMOR:** the lioness' den || _1237 words_

> Lunya/G'raha & Lunya's family. || Post-Reflections in Crystal  
>  Lunya had to get her mischief and passive-aggression from _somewhere._

**9\. LUSH:** when all the lights are out || _960 words_

> Melmeltan/Coco || Post-Reflections in Crystal  
>  The Isle of Val is gone. But Melmeltan is still here.

**10\. AVAIL:** the wheel is come full circle || _1337 words_

> Emet-Selch & Asteria || Pre-Sundering || 5.3 Spoilers  
>  Emet-Selch doesn't understand what Asteria sees in little things such as these.

**11\. ULTRACREPIDARIAN:** if this is love (then love completes me) || _1464 words_

> Krile & G'raha/Lunya || Modern AU  
>  G'raha does a few backflips to impress a girl.

**12\. TOOTH AND NAIL:** last resort || _654 words_

> Gen; Lunya & Haurchefant & Reese || Heavensward  
>  The one where Lunya opens the seventh gate just to spite Jannequinard (and for other less petty reasons, but mostly that).

**13\. BADINAGE (extra credit):** >TEXT CHANNELS #mom-panic || _680 words_

> Gen; Lunya & friends || Modern AU  
>  Lunya makes the grand mistake of submitting to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

**14\. PART:** meet me where the sunlight ends || _2566 words_

> Lunya/G'raha || Modern AU  
>  Summer is at its end, and so is G'raha, his wits, and Lunya's patience. 

**15\. ACHE:** it's a hard bark life || _1022 words_

> Gen; Lunya & friends || Modern AU  
>  Lunya has a habit of picking up strays.

**16\. LUCUBRATION:** unmend || _1820 words_

> Gen; Lunya & Reese || A Realm Reborn  
>  It’s too bad therapy doesn’t exist in eorzea.

**17\. FADE:** though my soul may set in darkness || _606 words_

> Lunya || Post-5.3, no spoilers  
>  Lunya gets some kind of closure.

**18\. PANGLOSSIAN:** struck from a great height || _528 words_

> Lunya & Sirius & Linnet || Post-5.3, no spoilers  
>  If you looked up the definition of "normal childhood" none of them would be the example image.

**19\. WHERE THE HEART IS:** when i see your light shine, i know i'm home || _2225 words_

> Lunya/G'raha, ancient!Lunya/G'raha || Pre-Sundering + post-5.3, major spoilers  
>  If I were to tell you that this isn’t the end—that we will meet again—would you believe me?

**20\. ENMITY (extra credit):** pick me from the dark and pull me from the grave || _1527 words_

> Lunya/G'raha || Pirate AU  
>  This is the story of how G'raha Tia died. Maybe.

**21\. FOIBLES:** unsteady hand || _900 words_

> Lunya/G'raha || Post-Reflections in Crystal, major spoilers  
>  Old habits die hard or not at all.

**22\. ARGY-BARGY:** triple trial || _1164 words_

> Lunya/G'raha, Melkoko/H'mhasi, minor Lalai/Zhai'a || Post-Reflections in Crystal, spoilers  
>  This doesn't really count as a triple date.

**23\. SHUFFLE:** heart of the cards || _513 words_

> Gen; Lunya & Sirius || Pre-Calamity  
>  Before she became the Warrior of Light, Lunya Lanya played card games in Ul'dah with a different name.

**24\. BEAM:** make me crash, forget my name || _550 words_

> Lunya/G'raha || Modern AU  
>  Summer lovin', had me a blast.

**25\. WISH:** let me find you || _928 words_

> Lunya/G'raha || Reflections in Crystal, major spoilers  
>  Lunya goes to wake up Sleeping Beauty.

**26\. WHEN PIGS FLY:** through the looking glass || _1198 words_

> Gen; Lunya & Zaya || Post-Reflections in Crystal spoilers  
>  Two Warriors of Darkness dancing in the moonlight and believing in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

**27\. BRAZEN (extra credit):** a sinking feeling || _1153 words_

> Gen; Lunya & her grandparents || Pre-Calamity  
>  "Gran! It's Grandpa! They put frogs in him." "What?!" 

**28\. IRENIC:** forgive and forget-me-not || _1672 words_

> Gen; Lunya & her daughter, Nynya || Post-Canon  
>  Nynya has her first fight with her best friend. Lunya takes it very seriously. 


	2. tether-a-tether

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day one: crux
> 
> it's just like old times.
> 
> [5.3 spoilers]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr friends:  
> a'dewah, zaya - fistsoflightning  
> a'satina - windupcatgirl  
> hanami - to-the-voiceless  
> reese - winduphaurchefant  
> rjoli - verbroil

Mor Dhona's tendency to gloom over would be _annoying_ at best and _hazardous_ at worst when it concerned the health of a dozen freshly awoken Scions— _"fresh from the oven!"_ Rjoli had quipped cheerily before he was promptly chased out of the Dawn's Respite with his own baguettes, Urianger gaping helplessly at him as he went—while they were still recovering from both aetherial and physical atrophy. Krile had done what she could while their souls were still trapped across the rift, but now it was largely up to the efforts of the Scions themselves to recover properly. An aetherial smog would do nothing to help, but blessedly the Warriors brought not just their wayward friends home but a full week of gentle sunshine in their wake, and it'd done wonders for the health of _all_ the Scions. 

F'lhaminn was singing again (and the heavens knew how _long_ it'd been since she last did so, her voice swallowed, _strangled_ by the grief of losing her daughter not for the first time but for truly the last). Her nightingale voice drifted through the open door to the Rising Stones and out the Seventh Heaven, where the open windows of the Guild hall let her song wash faintly over Krile even as she sat outside, pouring over a tome she gratefully received as a gift from an Exarch she'd _technically_ never meet.

Technicalities. It was a headache to think about while she was as drained as she was now. But the weather was good and between herself and her seatmate she had half a loaf of a truly foul Archon loaf to savour, lifting her spirits high. So when she examined G'raha over her book— _A Treatise on the Nature of the Aetherial Form_ —her gaze was still sharp despite the exhaustion which weighed down her shoulders and left shadows beneath her eyes. 

"If you're going to stare so hard you may as well set up a canvas and palette," she teased him as she folded her tome shut, placing her elbow upon her knee as she leaned forward and propped her chin in her hand. This was a set-up they'd taken many times back on the Isle of Val—G'raha busy with a book or sandwich of some sort while she sat upon his bench's back, offering him a mixture of genuine advice and mirthful prodding as he worked. All that was missing was Ejika's grumbling some paces away and Grandfather's soft chuckle whenever she'd say too much and G'raha would swipe at her, threatening to knock her backwards off her seat. 

It was still hard to verbalize it—to really admit they were gone and that their home was on the other side of the world and simply a mirage of the place it once was—but she hoped G'raha knew how comforted she was by his presence at her side once more.

His ear twitched, acknowledging her teasing. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," G'raha said blithely, though he didn't bother to tear his gaze away to spare her a _look_. "Are you certain you haven't come down with aether sickness? I've heard one of the symptoms is seeing things. Theodaux did offer to return should the strain of managing the bulk of our healing be too much."

"Ah ah. Have more faith in me," Krile chided with an affectionate _click_ of her tongue, nudging his shoulder with the side of her leg. The last thing they needed was a fidgety Ishgardian mothering them all to death when A'dewah was already fussing up a storm while bedridden. "Come now, it's been _years_ since you could hide a secret from me. Literally, even, since I hadn't seen that baby face of yours in nearly six summers."

" _I'm_ the one with the baby face?" huffed G'raha jokingly, and she gave him a glare that told him to _go on, continue that thought if you're not a coward._ He didn't.

Six summers since he'd last seen Val, too. Maybe once their other healers stabilized she could arrange a trip to Eureka and give him a chance to retrieve whatever belongings he might have left behind at the headquarters, assuming the whole island's dip into the Lifestream hadn't decided to mess with their bedrooms. Any plans within the next moon weren't unreasonable to make thanks to the Warriors healing at that unnatural rate of theirs. 

Speaking of...

The subject of her friend's fixation was still standing just a few films away, talking avidly with some of her fellow Warriors. Sensing another pair of eyes on her, Lunya turned from a bristled-but-in-a-way-that-was-clearly-fond Hanami, looking around the Toll until her gaze finally landed on the two Students watching her. She'd been sporting vibrant vermilions and midnight blacks since their return, adorned with gold and crystal and with the clear intention of matching their newest Scion's garb. The way light reflected from her aetheryte earring was overpowered in radiance by Lunya's growing smile as G'raha gave her an utterly smitten grin.

 _Gross_ , Krile thought delightfully, wiggling her fingers at the others with a knowing, mischievous smile. Before now she hadn't the pleasure of being in the presence of both Lunya and G'raha at once, but the other Warriors did, and Reese's helpless shrug told Krile that sappily staring at each other with no consideration for the people around them was simply their _thing_. It was a shame that Ejika couldn't be here, because for all his griping and grumbling at herself he also enjoyed the occasional snipe at the other Students and surely would get a kick out of their resident Allagan-maniac thinking about literally anything else for once.

"I'm _really_ happy for you, Raha," Krile said sincerely as A'satina said something that pulled Lunya's attention back, and she patted his shoulder with ease from her higher perch as he sulked beneath the loss of his lodestar's light. "You have always been family to me—and now you're part of a bigger one."

G'raha's tail went _swish swish_ over the stone bench, an anxious habit of his that she hadn't seen since they were teenagers that must have sprung back to life during his intern as the Exarch. "It still feels like a dream," he admitted, looking up at her properly for the first time all morning. Though there was still hesitation in his crimson eyes (and what a shock it'd been when she first saw him again without the one of teal, with a nervous twinge to them unbefitting of one of Sharlayan's fabled Archons,) he looked much more alive now than he'd ever been in all their shared years. "That I've been given a second chance, and to have made it this far… 'tis nothing short of a miracle, the whole thing."

Krile smiled. The G'raha of her youth was cocky, at times. Eccentric, exuberant, hopelessly _smug_. But she knew the humble, earnest parts of him as well; how he carried an all-encompassing love and the desire to do good despite all the world had weighed him with his life, and she didn't think there was anyone more deserving of a second chance at happiness than himself.

"You worked hard," she reminded him. The breeze he and their friends brought was cool today, a lovely offset to the summer sun, and it rippled into her hood and stirred her ponytail within as best as it could. An eternal wind following the brightest star in their sky. "There's no need to downplay your achievements in front of me of all people."

G'raha chuckled then, the sound low and warm. "I owe all my strength to her, in the end. I don't know if I would have fought half as hard if not for her memory guiding me." There was no need to say her name when they both already knew.

"I think you still would have," is what Krile said in turn, her eyes drifting back to the smallest Warrior present, aglow with simple joy. "But you're good for each other. I've known you both apart and now I know you both together, and perhaps it's not my place to say so but… She looks to you for strength, for an anchor, as much as you do in turn. I can see this much, and all I can hope is that you don't underestimate your importance to her."

He blinked, slow and deliberate, rubbing at his uncovered eye with the back of his fist. "...Lodestar. The star that charts my course. _Essential_ dignity," he murmured to himself, amused for reasons Krile knew better than to pry into for once. "I know better than to squander this chance and this knowledge." He looked at her quietly for a moment, deliberating. "Thank you, Krile."

"Of course." Krile smiled before another idea seized her. It was about time to affirm the truth in her words, to re-establish her place in his life as the obnoxious little sister he'd always deserved. "But tell me, Raha, when do you plan to propose?"

Instead of choking or spluttering in shock like she expected him to, her old friend just raised an eyebrow. 

"...I wonder," G'raha said with a tone that wasn't so much contemplating as it was _smarmy_ , and something snapped into place in Krile's brain.

She forced him to turn to her slowly, eyeing him like a deer that had come to the realization that its predator was standing right next to it. "You _didn't_ ," she groaned.

His response was just a lazy grin, one that was so potently _G'raha Tia_ she could simply smack herself from a week ago for ever hesitating on how much of him was _Raha_.

Oh, she was so _stupid_. Lunya always chose her jewelry with as much thought as she put into her outfits, and it was common for her to wear two or three rings with any given set. Between that fact and the chaos of the Scions' awakening Krile hadn't given any thought to the _new_ ones she was sporting since their return, ones she hadn't seen before. The woman in question was laughing, a small hand over her mouth as Zaya continued to sign, their hands moving faster than Krile knew how to interpret. As Lunya giggled, the two bands on her left ring finger shone in the sunlight—the first an engagement ring of gold and star ruby, and the second a crystalline wedding band.

There was no doubt in Krile's mind that if she'd pushed herself any harder during this morning's healing session she surely would have fainted at this revelation.

Instead, she took a deep breath. " _G'raha_ _Tia_ ," she rumbled as she stood. Though he was still sitting, standing on the bench barely made her taller than him and that only served to incense her further. "Why did neither of you tell me that _you got married?!"_

"In fairness," her friend, her brother, this _moron_ laughed while Lunya—his wife! His honest to gods wife!—turned and hissed _quiet down, you two!_ "The wedding was more than a little rushed. And _you_ were the one who said you could see through my secrets—"

Krile sank back down, sitting properly next to him this time; assuming _beleaguered lump of yellow and cloth ears_ could really be called a proper sitting position in any sense. "Twelve preserve," she griped, dragging a hand down her face. "Does _Tataru_ know?"

"It takes a special kind of man to widow his wife just ten minutes after they're wed," Lunya sighed as she approached, the others following behind her with sympathetic smiles and a half-glare from Hanami. A soft _oh_ didn't quite leave Krile's mouth, trapped there by the memory of Lunya's eyes after they'd come home with one spirit vessel extra, her gaze tinged red in grief but shimmering with the light of a complex, hesitant hope. "And you're the first to know outside of those who went to the First."

G'raha pulled Lunya towards him, propping his chin upon her crown of her starlit hair. She pressed her head against his shoulder, unashamed of little shows of affections such as these in front of the others. "We're planning on letting the others know once things settle down and the others are properly recovered," he told them, earning a round of approving nods. "But Lunya," he inhaled, "I want to give you a proper wedding. I don't know when it will be, but—"

Lunya interrupted him with a finger pressed against her lips, eyes scrunched into gentle half-moons as she breathed a quiet _shh_. "I know," she said warmly, squeezing his left hand with her own, the absence of his own wedding band stark in contrast to the shine of Lunya's own. "I need to get you new rings."

"Tataru is going to have a conniption," Krile exhaled, though it couldn't quite stop a tired grin from spreading across her face. "I'm looking forward to it, lovebirds."

The other Lalafell rounded on her. " _You_ are complicit in this now," Lunya announced, pointing an accusing finger only half-jokingly. "I expect your cooperation on keeping her sated with discounts at Sunsilk Tapestries when the time comes."

As the rest of the Warriors caved in to laughter and giggles and G'raha and Lunya exchanged bright, loving smiles, Krile thought she could put up with Tataru's wrath a thousand times over if it meant two of her best friends being this happy for the rest of their lives. 

They were going to be alright.


	3. listen my lover (to the beat of my love)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day two: sway
> 
> a pyjama party, of sorts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr friends:  
> tehra'ir - fistsoflightning  
> reese - winduphaurchefant

Often when he found her dancing, it was to an old Thavnairian tune that stuttered every other note, her tiny orchestrion fumbling over the worn music roll she'd plucked from a merchant's dusty crate for just ten gil over a dozen suns ago. He could never make heads or tails of the lyrics, but he knew she had her mother's old lullabies passed from daughter to daughter to daughter—a legacy she told him she doesn't know how to bear or add to it herself—and the Echo: a blessing she never really wanted. 

"We're really testing the limits of this scaffolding," he dared to pipe up when he climbed high enough to comfortably rest his upper half and elbows on the scaffolding, tail still casually swaying to and fro in the air as he balanced upon the rickety ladder. "Lunya, I'm afraid even _I_ am not normally so bold as to climb this high after a round of drinks."

There came no answer, so caught up in her art as she was. She moved like she was born of the sea and the waves sing in her veins, graceful and fluid in every measure. To an outsider, perhaps, each step would look perfect: but he knew as well as she did that there was a slight sway to her movements, the sweetness of that night's wine seeped into her bones, staining a lovely flush warm against her cheeks.

"I only drank enough to feel buzzed, but Reese doesn't want me practicing down by the lake," Lunya finally said as the orchestrion murmured into silence, the words gusting out with the force of a storm as she exhaled, looking at him. Her eyes glowed beneath Mor Dhona's twilight, just as violet and thrice as clear, slivers of pink and azure facets gleaming through as she smiled in greeting, the very thin tendrils of the start of inebriation softening her expression even more. "I thought you were already asleep, Raha." 

G'raha clambered up onto the platform, careful not to kick the ladder back—for all the tales she'd told him of «balefire»'s chaotic rampages across Eorzea, he was certain she wouldn't want to add " _got_ _trapped on some scaffolding with a colleague, both wearing pyjamas in the dead of night while most of the camp was drunk in their cups"_ to her collection—and looked her over now that she was standing still.

She seemed fine, outside of the fact that he _knew_ she'd been drinking. Much like the robe he'd grown accustomed to seeing her in, ridiculous rabbit ears and all, the tunic she chose to sleep in was pure white. She was a vision of stardust, swathed in the light of the full moon above them, and he thought it was a shame he was born a Seeker of the Sun when each moment he got to spend with Lunya inclined him more to keeping the moon.

"Nazyl Duzyl started _singing_ ," he groaned instead of verbalizing such flowery thoughts. "Though I imagine it better to call it caterwauling _._ You still should not be up here, imp. One slip and you'd fall right off."

"You came up too, brat," she pointed out, the corner of her mouth twitching into a smirk as he pouted at her. "But if I have the honor of being fretted over by you I suppose I'll have to restrain myself next time." 

_Fretted over_. He could have snorted, knowing he had basically flung himself from his bedroll when he awoke without his tentmate sleeping soundly nearby, tipsily flinging his shoes on without the leg guards so he could search for her. It would be wrong to say he was very good with spirits, but he knew that impulsive surge wasn't entirely from the drinks. 

"Well, while I'm up here," he said as cheerily as he could, sweeping into a low, pretentious bow, "May I have a dance?"

Up went one snowy eyebrow. "Didn't you just point out that _I_ could slip and fall off the scaffold? Would this not increase our odds of dying a horrible death?" Even so, she rewound the orchestrion roll and offered a hand to him, biting her lip with an uncharacteristic tinge of embarrassment as he took it. 

G'raha placed his free hand over his heart. "It would be an honor to die with you, Lady Warrior," he promised her, ears wiggling mirthfully as she leveled a glare at him. "Though I know neither of us could find a grave so easily while we have so much to do."

Lunya mumbled something—doubtlessly not real words, since he would have heard what they were, but he was certain she was thinking _stupid cat_. 

"This will be the least coordinated thing you'll ever see me do," she warned him as the music kicked in once more, luminous eyes flashing up to him. "You're twice my height and I can't even teach you the steps."

"I'm sure." He laughed as he took a step closer, emboldened—by what, the drinks? His affection for her? The fear that had been looming over him for some time now that he'd miss his chance? "Thank you for the opportunity, my dearest friend."

He didn't know the song and couldn't understand the lyrics, but as they swayed back and forth, hand in hand in a loose, unbalanced, sloppy rendition of one of her perfected moves, he felt he may be closer to her heart now than ever before. Lunya hummed along with the singer, the closest he'd ever heard to her singing, and they both laughed when he improvised a twirl into their faux dance routine. The way the moon cast light over Mor Dhona was beautiful, and she seemed right at home in their dance beneath the stars.

"Whoops!" 

Lunya heard his grin before she found it as she fell backwards. When she looked up, G'raha's face was close to her own, beaming mischievously right at her while he was knelt down and holding her in a ridiculous-looking dip, his tail bracing the back of her knees. 

"Very bold. That was _not_ an accident, Raha," she scolded only half-heartedly, reaching up to pinch the cheeky smile off his face but only fueling the fire. He wondered if the excited pound of his heartbeat in his throat echoed in her own. "Would you mind letting me stand?"

"I do mind, in fact." He hid his grin in her hair as he stood, cradling her in his arms and shaking with laughter as Lunya thumped her small fist against his chest once, twice, before she sulkily gave up, slumping against his shoulder with a tiny noise of discontent. "As enchanting as this night has been, it's far past the Warrior of Light's bedtime. Luckily for you, I happen to have one ticket for a G'raha Tia cart back to her tent."

"Shuddup, cat," she mumbled, waving a hand in the direction of her orchestrion. He scooped it up for her, placing it carefully on her lap so she could turn it off and keep it close before he began their precarious descent back down the ladders. 

The camp was still quiet, the remnants of their drinking party still evident in the abandoned assortment of cups around the Find. A few of the Sons were scattered in sight, most of them snoring away on any solid surface they could find, and others still nursing a drink to the side, singing quietly to themselves. 

A lone Miqo'te kept vigil at the fire and his ears perked up as G'raha approached. Tehra'ir raised an eyebrow at the sight of them, clearly wanting to ask about Lunya's presence in his arms, but all he did was nod to him: a silent acknowledgement that G'raha hadn't died trying to retrieve their wayward Lalafell and neither of them were in immediate need of medical assistance. 

Waving him goodnight, G'raha turned to follow the path back to his and Lunya's shared tent. She was already half asleep when he pulled open the flap, though she blinked blearily at him setting her down on her bedroll, wiggling both her orchestrion out of her hands and her boots off her feet.

"Sweet dreams, Lu, and thank you for the dance," he told her fondly, turning to his bed. A small tug at the back of his shirt had him looking back to her as she sat up on her knees, rubbing at her eyes. 

"Raha," he heard Lunya say sleepily before she leaned forward and pressed a warm kiss to the corner of his lips, sending a shocked spark soaring through him, a frazzled flutter that left him wide-eyed and wanting. The saccharine scent of wine flooded his nose as she pulled away, sinking back down into her blankets, sleep coming back to abduct her before he could even properly respond. "G'night."

"...Goodnight," he whispered, knowing she wouldn't hear him. Laughing to himself and his face impossibly warm, far more heated than the sweet wine had made him feel, G'raha Tia removed his shoes and crawled back into his own bed, heart askew.


	4. set your heart ablaze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day three: muster
> 
> there’s no bonding experience quite like getting abducted together.
> 
> [self-injury/blood warning]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "muster? i thought you said mustard."
> 
> tumblr friends:  
> reese - winduphaurchefant

The stone pricked her when she turned it over in her palm, its ragged edges poking through the numbness of her fingers while she weighed her options. None of them were particularly pretty, not in the darkness of their little prison, where the scant light from fiendfire torches turned muddied in the reflection of the cold, damp floor. 

And the sight before her was equally ugly. The Flame officers were acting like their lives were over (and, reluctantly, there was a part of her that felt they might be right), humiliated and terrified in tandem. The abductees looked more tired than anything else, the shock long worn from their systems as they slumped against each other, done struggling against their binds. 

No back-up with weapons. A handful of civilians to prioritize protecting. And her own grimoire was gone, which was just _fantastic_. Assuming they got out of this alive, Sirius was going to kill her.

Really, what a pain. As exciting as the prospect of beating them half to death on her own with just the flimsy dagger in her boot was, she wasn't going to give the Scions any excuse to accuse her of impropriety through stealing the glory for herself. Hopefully the other adventurers had something of their own up their sleeves; the turncoats weren't thorough in their frisking, so overconfident in their victory that they hadn't even bothered to tie half of them up, and she was certain the rogue had to be carrying at least a dozen more blades on him.

The only other member of the team unfortunate enough to get tossed into this room with her was currently curled into a ball at her back, making herself as small as her long limbs could let her be. To her credit, Reese didn't sniffle or sob like some of the trained soldiers a few paces away. She stared, glassily, at the light dancing across the cave walls, as quiet as she'd been the day Lunya first met her, and the thought made the arcanist sigh, overdrawn and dramatic.

She liked to think she did a good job keeping others away in the years after the Calamity, carefully curating a shield around her heart. Despite her best efforts Momodi never managed to convince Lunya to work in parties before she left Ul'dah, and Lunya knew it was her guardian's insistence that had Baderon slotting her down to lead a group of greenhorns through Sastasha Seagrot when she returned to La Noscea for the first time in years. Cordiality was easy. Keeping a professional distance wasn't hard, and very few people wanted to be her friend after just a bell around her anyway. But Majj persisted. So did Nyneve, and then Theodaux, and then Reese. 

And how could she repay any of them like this, not knowing how consolation worked outside of formal apologies to the mourners of the Ossuary? No matter how fervently she wanted to comfort the older adventurer, she didn't even know where to start—how do you reassure someone you won't be dying together in the depths of the desert when you're both weaponless and your only hope of outside rescue wouldn't trust you with a ten-fulm pole?

 _Heads_ , she decided then, flipping her little stone in the air. Nymeia's visage passed in her mind as the little white splotch on one side whirled around, fate twisting the path ahead. She caught it between cupped hands, covering it for a heartbeat before she opened it flat against her right hand.

The white splotch stared tauntingly at her. 

"Alright, then," Lunya exhaled, stirring Reese out of her internalized anxiety gauntlet. "Let's be barbaric about this." 

A storm rumbling in her chest, she took the sharp edge of the rock and pushed it against her thigh.

The splutter behind her was immediate. "What are you doing?" Reese started in alarm, reaching for a staff that wasn't there as Lunya dragged it down her leg, drawing thick lines through her skin, blood pooling up as she went. Good. There was a light in her friend's eyes now—a desperate one, and that was enough to ensure she could stay alive. Lunya knocked aside her worried hands, concentrating on getting the forms perfect. Pain tolerance wasn't one of the boons passed down in her family; trying to write another spell if she messed this one up would be pushing her luck. No matter how they pushed the nickname, she rarely lived up to the title of _Little Lady Luck._

"I'm earning my keep," she told Reese, tongue in teeth, her magic tingling dangerously in her palms and in the sharpness of her grin against the burning feeling of her skin wanting to force itself back together. It'd been a while since she had to tap into her raw aether like this, unaided by the familiar pages of her grimoire and the hum of its enchanted ink. If anything happened to it (or, Twelve forbid, Ruruby's gem,) there'd be hell to pay.

Reese, bless her soul, was apoplectic. "How on earth—this—you—you're just injuring yourself!"

"You're not dying here." A beastlike grin crossed Lunya's lips as she turned to her with triumph, cast silver in the glow from the geometry freshly carved in her thigh. There was no chance Reese could fight without a staff, not after Lunya tasted the raw emotion behind those spells and found her control lacking. "Have I ever told you I have an overabundance of aether?"

 _"Stand, savages!"_ barked the Amalj'aa at the cave entrance as Reese grabbed onto her arm, looking even more afraid than she'd been before as they were roughly escorted outside the cave. If any of their capturers noticed the arcane symbols bleeding from Lunya's leg, they thought nothing of it, which was their mistake to regret. 

Others were pushed into the circle of flames with Lunya's group. Sacrifices then, all of them—herself and Reese, the towering roegadyn woman with no axe, the dark-scaled pugilist holding no hora but standing with fists clenched. She caught a flash of silver in the rogue's sleeves and grinned. 

_Clever, clever._

The other Miqo'te—the group's second conjurer—locked eyes with her. He'd been just as nervous in temperament as Reese, she remembered, but in this moment there was a fire in his eyes that said _we cannot die like this._ Behind the scaled backs of the zealots he shifted a wooden wand to the rogue, who slinked over to Lunya like a shadow and had it in her hands as quick as a burst of wind.

"You don't need to find courage," she whispered to a trembling Reese, teeth bared in confidence and her aether singing in her throat as she pressed the thin rod to the elezen's shaking hands. It was weathered and would likely break after the coming battle, but it would do. If she could not give one of her first friends in years comfort through words, then she'd just have to take action. "You just have to want to _live._ "

And the fire in the other conjurer's eyes reflected in Reese's, biting down hard on her lower lip, brows furrowed as she steeled her courage, tempering herself in the flames of adversity. 

_"Lord of the Inferno, hearken to our plea!"_


	5. will you catch me if i should fall?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day four: clinch
> 
> hold me closer, tiny dancer
> 
> [circus au]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crystal x starch Yesterday at 6:02 PM  
>  _my apologies to the qestir khan for having my catboys ass out in the middle of his yurt it was important_
> 
> my ocs:  
> lunya | majj | mimi | nyneve | seven
> 
> tumblr friends:  
> elwin, zaya - fistsoflightning  
> hanami - to-the-voiceless  
> sati - windupcatgirl

"You know," G'raha mulled over the fluttering of silk with every practiced turn of his muse above him as she flipped upside down, one leg pointed up at the ceiling while she arched her back to look at him curiously. "Most people would ask someone if they're afraid of heights _before_ sweeping them up to the ceiling when they first meet."

The music was swelling behind them as Lunya broke from her routine, twisting out of her ankle hold to wrap her ribbons around her thighs instead. She tilted forward, spiralling in the air and falling down, down, down, a move that always left their audiences gasping each stop on tour, before she caught herself flat in her silks at his eye level, a beckoning hand outstretched to him. 

"I'm not most people, Raha," she reminded him with a dazzling grin, her expression brighter than the lights strung from the sweeping canvas overhead. Gold glitter sparkled in her ponytail and in a smudge on her nose, the aftermath of an accident with Urianger and his carbuncle that morning, and it sparkled like little motes of sunlight on a sea of white clouds. "And you love me for that."

"Of course," he agreed with no hesitation as he stepped toward her, reveling in how she still flushed dark with embarrassment even though she was the one to set up the admission. "Though I dare say 'tis good for both of us that I hold no fear of high places. Imagine our acts without my handsome visage lighting up the stage."

Lunya nodded quite cheerfully as she shifted in her suspension, twilight eyes crinkling with mirth when he reached out and took her hand, pulling her across the gap between them and hooking his elbow behind the back of her knee. "Oh yes, there'd simply be no point in seeing a show by _the_ famed Cirque d'eorzea without the Crystal Exarch."

His laughter in turn was low enough to be a purr rumbling in his chest as he leaned up to press his face to her neck. "Well, I've heard his Lady Luck's beauty is unsurpassed across Aldenard and even beyond the sea." She giggled, fondly tapping the bottom of his chin.

Mor Dhona's aetherial humidity in summer didn't quite compare to the heat in the moment as he held her, tilting his head up to hers, the softness of her stomach warm against his chin, her lips searing affection to the crown of his head. He adjusted then, wanting to kiss the light in his hands—

 _"OI, LOVEBIRDS!"_ Seven hollered from behind the spotlights, swinging one to shine directly at them. On the opposite side of the tent, Majj and Nyneve, eager to take their turns playing resident clown, wolf-whistled in unison. "HAVE SOME RESPECT FOR YOUR ELDERS! NO KISSIN' IN MY RING! _WHAT IF ELWIN SEES?"_

The couple both made grumbled noises of malcontent over the chortling of the small handful of friends watching the display, but before Lunya could look over her shoulder and yell back _"eat shit, old man!"_ the tent flap swung open.

" _Your_ ring?" was Alisaie's indignant snap when she entered, followed by a very insistent, very pointed " _he's right!_ No public displays of affection in our circus! Especially from you two! Stop being gross!"at Lunya and G'raha. The technician's section of the tent flew into an uproar as the loudest of their three little ringmasters swept in with a threat to give every single member of the cirque a noogie as collective punishment for _'lèse-majesté'_ (where was she getting these ideas anyway?!) _,_ which just had Seven howling even more about there being no respect for the elderly beneath this bigtop, to which an unbothered Mimi reminded him he was only in his forties and therefore not eligible for the seniors' discount at Haurchefant's concession stand.

Following in the wake of the red flurry that was Alisaie, Ryne and Alphinaud were the next to show up by the entrance, each holding half of the stack of freshly printed fliers Alisaie was supposed to bring in herself. Ryne gave Lunya an apologetic smile and shy wave when the girl spotted them in the center of the stage, and Alphinaud looked simply exhausted as he went to stop his twin from using someone's wayward practice poi to bludgeon one or more of their crew members. 

Lunya and G'raha, against the blinding light in their faces, sighed in unison. Leave it to their adopted family to burn all their energy during practice. Someone—Cid was the only option, really—finally took pity on them and swung the spotlight back in place, and Lunya undid her silks, flipping around until she could gracefully plant her feet on the crash mat. 

Some of the others were starting to peek into the main tent, drawn by the shrieks of laughter. Y'shtola looked in long enough to decide that Seven wasn't going to need first aid after Alisaie was done tickling him to death and kept walking, but the more curious members of the troupe were taking seats in the benches. One of them was Sati, who all but tumbled into the ring when she came in, stubby tail twitching as she bounced up to them. 

"Oh, _no,_ " she whined, looking miserably between Lunya and G'raha. "Did I miss your duet practice? I've been waiting to watch it all day!"

"Hanami was telling her how hard you've been practicing, though _vaguely_ ," Thancred announced as he followed up behind her, twirling a knife in hand. A sly grin took over his face as he took up a spot on the edge of the ring, nodding to G'raha in greeting. "Well. How hard _Lunya_ 's been practicing. You know your job was supposed to be spotting, not seducing, G'raha?"

"You know _all_ about that kind of thing, huh?" Lunya teased back, rolling her eyes at Thancred's embarrassed scratch at the back of his neck, his wrist brushing against the moon earring he wore—Zaya's handiwork. "I just finished my solo silks, Sati, you didn't miss anything. Are you up for a flight, Raha?"

"As always." G'raha grinned, kicking off his shoes and climbing onto the mat with her. He pulled one of the silks to him, wrapping it over his wrist and around his back, crossing it over his heart as Sati scuttled away to sit down by Thancred, eyes wide and a broad smile already on her face while the technicians stopped their happy chaos long enough to queue up the next orchestrion roll. "And never fear, I've done my stretches already. I'll only bruise a bit should I fall."

"I wouldn't let you go for anything, dearest Exarch," Lunya assured him with a laugh, bold and clear. "Just hold on tight." G'raha's grip on her hand was warm and soft, like the sands of Costa del Sol, like the summer winds of La Noscea and the sunsets over Vylbrand. Looking into his face was like coming home, and not for the first time she was beyond grateful the cirque brought them together beneath this striped ceiling and into the loving arms of her second family. 

As the first notes began to resonate through the tent, through the canvas walls and dusty light bulbs, over the wooden rows of seats, around the ring and the faces of those who brought them this far, G'raha bowed deeply to her, crimson eyes bright and full of love. "Of course, my lady. My life has always been yours."


	6. come morning light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day five: matter of fact
> 
> if you start calling me grandma we’re gonna have a few problems.

Homeward bound, the Warriors went.

There were questions, of course, when they first restored night to Norvrandt and brought home their Exarch. Questions the heroes themselves were able to answer. But now they were gone, and Lyna was the one to bear the brunt of it all. She broke bread with them. Bled with them. Had placed the Crystarium's—no, all of Norvrandt's—hope on their shoulders time and time again. There were others, of course, but it was Lyna who met them first, had stood faithfully at the Exarch's side as she always did, so she dutifully took up the job, answering what she could with what knowledge they had left her.

(And in the end, that knowledge was scant and infinite in equal measure, the grief over her grandfather's fate in fervent union with all the years she knew but tried to ignore how everything would lead to this, that he'd leave her in the end, by death or time or space. His fate was tied to his lodestar's before Lyna herself had ever met him, the pull of her gravity so potent in force he bent to impossible lengths beneath the weight of the world just to see her again. He spoke like a man knowing he would soon die, that his aether would collapse to galaxy dust and steal him back among the stars, and when they came home hand in hand he was like a star collapsed, broken, and then born anew, light in his eyes like the birth of a universe. Lyna had always known, had always figured they'd have time to come to terms with his farewell. But they hadn't, and she didn't begrudge him for such a thing. But. But—)

"Can you tell us more about Miss Lunya? The Exarch loved her, right?" one of the little ones asked, and for the first time since Grandfather left her, Lyna visibly wavered. It must have been clear on her face because before she could wrangle together something, _anything_ she could say, Katliss had swooped in, Bragi at her side, and carted the children away to the Mean, where physical remnants of the Warriors' little star still remained, a tender spot of light in the dark.

"I do believe it's time for you to take a break," Chessamile told her with a gentle, matronly pat on her shoulder, looking her in the eye with a firmness that gave no room for argument. "And I don't mean on patrol. Go out and take in the wind." 

So she sat at the Accensor Gate, cradling a worn novel in hand, seeing but not reading the words before her. Her men busied themselves along the platforms, refusing to give her any room to break Chessamile's orders. The breeze was gentle, today, shifting violet leaves free from Lakeland's elf trees. But it felt wasteful to simply be sitting around, not when things still needed to be organized in the aftermath of their leader's departure. There were patrols to be taken, trade routes to be finalized—

"Captain Lyna," chimed a bell-like voice down the stairs, and the Viis nearly shot out of her own skin at the familiar voice. 

"Lunya?" Standing up from the table, she caught a glimpse of white and red bobbing up and down as the dwarven woman bounded towards her, the crystal and gold accents on her new outfit gleaming in Lakeland's afternoon light. 

The small Warrior grinned, lifting up a woven basket. Behind her, two mammets trotted up, one painfully familiar and the other that could only be a younger version of her grandfather. "I've come to visit."

"Is there something amiss with—with the Exarch?" Lyna asked her as the dwarf joined her at the table, standing on her tiptoes to slip the basket on top before she clambered up in one of the seats.

"Of course not," Lunya said matter-of-factly, opening the cover of her basket. From within she began to draw out little containers of delightful looking cakes and sandwiches. "Though Raha's certainly itching to get cleared from the medbay, he's promised me he's not going to get into trouble while I'm away."

"I see. I—" Lyna swallowed. Where was the iron nerve of the Crystarium's guard captain now? "I did not expect to see you again so soon." _I did not expect to see you ever again,_ is what she hid beneath her tongue, the traitorous words bile against her teeth. _I did not think I'd receive aught besides formal reports._ _I did not think myself important enough to have news taken to me like this._

The gleam in Lunya's eyes dimmed, ever so slightly, the start of a small frown on her lips before she said, "I was hoping you'd have tea with me. Chessamile told you've been forced to take a day off. If I'm being a bother then I could find Taynor and Cerigg, but..."

"'Tis fine!" Lyna blurted, cursing herself immediately for speaking so brashly. Then, far softer than she intended, she said, "I do not mind."

Lunya's smile was like the sun, wholehearted and incandescent, as she continued to empty her basket. There were enough snacks to feed all the guards at the Gate, and Lunya did exactly that, calling on them with Lyna's permission to give them their treats. 

"I know you enjoy sweet things, so I brought some of my favourites from home," Lunya was saying as she poured a cup of sweet tea. Her mammets were squabbling over a sandwich slice on the table between them, pulling at each others' ears. Lyna wondered if they could even eat. "Ooh, wait, I can't believe I forgot!"

She set down her fork by her shortcake as Lunya dug around through her basket one more time. Out came a long velvet box, the kind jewelers packaged their wares in, which she slid across the table to Lyna.

"You can consider this an early nameday gift from your grandfather and I." Satisfied with her delivery, Lunya sat back and sipped at her tea, sighing in contentment.

The box was heavier than Lyna expected as she weighed it in her palm, and made of a superior quality than the stuff available to the general public in the Musica Universalis stalls. When she opened it, a gold chain slipped from its silken pillow, pooling upon the lignum vitae table as the sight of the pendant, shaped much like the aetheryte earring hanging from Lunya's ear, glittering as she raised it into the light.

"It's a piece of the Crystal Tower from our home," Lunya told her, smiling wryly as she flicked at the Not-Exarch's tiny forehead. It squeaked, falling over. "We've already picked parts of it off for my earring and Raha's staff, so another piece won't be missed."

Lyna was speechless. 

"He loves you more than words can say, you know. You're Raha's pride and joy," said Lunya with all the rightful confidence of a woman who'd saved two worlds, firm and resolute as she reached over the table, placing her small hand over Lyna's own shaking one. "You are _family_ , Lyna, not just to him but to me and the other Warriors and the Scions. You deserved better from him than no goodbye and the burden of healing this world, and we are so, so sorry that things ended the way they did. But we know that if there is anyone in Norvrandt strong enough to see things through it is you."

"And," Lunya continued as the Wind-up Mystel skipped over to Lyna, smiling up at her with all the gentleness her real grandpa once did before he was left to keep vigil high above the Crystarium, further from Lyna's reach than he'd ever been before, "No matter where he goes now, no matter where _you_ go, you are in his heart just as he is in yours. Nothing will change that."

Calling her _grandmother_ would probably make them both feel weird. Lunya wasn't her mother, either, and to call her sister wouldn't be right. But she was family, and while Lyna didn't quite know when that happened her heart knew she needed this now more than ever. The Exarch didn't _want_ to leave her like that. She shouldn't have ever doubted him. And she still had a family, even when they were a world apart. She hadn't been truly left behind.

"Do you need a moment?" Lunya asked gently, with the same softness Lyna often heard her speaking to the little Oracle of Light with.

"No," Lyna said, rubbing a stray tear from her eye. Lunya smiled and looked away, out to the road that winded through Lakeland, beneath the sky she and G'raha made. "Thank you, Lunya. For everything."


	7. hold back the river

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day six (free day): ephemeral
> 
> she’s not so weak as to ask them to stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my ocs:  
> kotone + honoka
> 
> tumblr friends:  
> hanami, haruki, shomi: to-the-voiceless  
> a'dewah: fistsoflightning

For a while, Honoka could pretend that things were normal, that theirs was a regular Doman family that had meals and sang and played and just got to _be together_. Gathered around the irori with Koto-neechan on one side and Hana-nee on the other, wearing _real_ Doman clothes that their grandmother dug up from the ruins of their old house, laughing at some stupid joke Haru-nii made while their grandmother let little Mune-chan win a game of koi-koi, it was almost like they never left Yanxia, like their kingdom hadn't fallen to the Garleans again and again and again, crushing their spirits and breaking their families apart beneath a steeled fist. 

If she closed her eyes and listened to the chitter of the swallows in the rafters and the stir of a halcyon wind sifting through the Enclave and the _clink_ of her father's cup against Shomi-obasan's and their shared _kanpai!_ , she could see another Doma, one still proud in her traditions and rich in its prosperity. In the Doma of her heart she saw the rice paddies flourish, the sunrise setting the rooftops aglow, the plum trees draped over the shores of the One River. By sundown everyone would come home and crowd around the chabudai, nary a sliver of room between their elbows as they shared dinner, never fearing for their safety nor whether or not they'd see each other again tomorrow.

(In the Doma of her heart she did not think of the absence of three of her cousins around the hearth, and selfishly hoped that Hana-nee could do the same for real.)

Yet for all she wished it to be, Doma was not like that. It might never be like that in her lifetime, if things stayed as they were, if the threat of the Garleans' return lingered on the horizon as it had her whole life. There were those who could change things. Good people who _wanted_ to. But—

"Koto-neechan, Hana-nee," she called over the hum of the One River, cutting crescents in the palms of her fisted hands. Daybreak came far faster than she cared for it, spiriting away the women who would have become matriarchs if rebellion hadn't made warriors out of them first, though she knew there was truly no difference between the two. 

Her sister and cousin turned, sunlight pooling on their shoulders, halfway across the demesne. The others were waiting at the gate, the sun rising in the east at their backs. A morning wind was stirring, pressing at Honoka's back, a gentle tailwind splitting her family in twain. The two Auri warriors and their morning star scales stood white against the light, the outlines bolder than before beneath their new haircuts, streaks of dark shadows stark against their jaws and high over the firmness of their shoulders. A far cry from a soft-hearted archer and an acrimonious gladiator, chasing a reckless dream of protecting a family they could not see. Not for the first time, Honoka wondered why she was the only one who hadn't changed, the only one who remained ignorant in daydreams and idealism and soft hands that knew nothing of fighting.

"If you do not come back I will never, ever forgive you," she announced anyway, chin held high in defiance against the whims of fate, against the whispers of doubt in her horns that told her they could drown in their dawn. If her family had changed then so would she. "Do I make myself clear?"

Koto-neechan and Hana-nee looked at each other for a long time before they looked at Honoka, and for a moment it felt like they were standing in the Toll again, surrounded by faces she didn't know and engulfed by a language that wasn't theirs. Even in those uncertain moments she had looked to them both for courage, and once they stepped past the gate she knew it would be cowardice to hope she could continue to do so.

"Crystal," Hana-nee said, coldfire eyes luminous and honest as she always was. "So long as you promise not to drown in a rice paddy while we are gone."

Before Honoka could protest that it was _Koto-neechan who did that_ and that she should be more worried about Haru-nii sprouting mushrooms with worry over A'dewah, the soft crunch of pebbles beneath zori had her turn in time for her sister to envelop in a hug.

"My sweet sister," Koto-neechan said, holding her as tightly as she had the day they fled from Yanxia, carried westward by Lady Yugiri and the sea, when all they knew was lost and they knew not what laid ahead. And before Honoka could stop, she found herself breaking, her composure slipping as her sister's horn was pressed to hers, a firm but kind hand on the back of her head that could only be her cousin's. "We will be alright. Take care of them for us." _And take care of yourself_ went unsaid, but Honoka felt it in the embrace and the steady presence at their side. 

"Who else could?" she sobbed, smiling, into her sister's shoulder, helpless and ready for a future without their guiding presence all at once. "What else can I do but this?"


	8. act your age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day seven: nonagenarian
> 
> viera ocs, grab your long lifespans
> 
> [5.3 spoilers]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my ocs:  
> lunya lanya  
> mimi romantica  
> myrrh mistral  
> seven korven

When Seven and Mimi dropped by the Dawn's Respite at the end of the moon, the pair planting themselves firmly at the end of Thancred's empty bed, no one was sure to expect from the two latest additions to Lunya's free company mingling with the newest member of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.

"If you were kept in stasis after you closed the Tower doors, are ya still twenty four summers?" the smaller of the two engineers asked G'raha between thoughtful chewing of a mirror apple, scrutinizing the man on the bed opposite Thancred's.

G'raha stammered and wavered on the braid he was plaiting in his wife's hair. He knew the answer, but under the prying, unfamiliar stare from Seven and Mimi's own disinterested one, he seemed to be losing his nerve. In his lap, Lunya snickered, an impish gleam in her eyes.

"He _is_ ," she told Seven with a little snicker, still sounding like tinkling bells. "I'm older than him now." Leaning back against G'raha's chest, she reached up and pinched at his cheek. "So make sure to respect your elders, _young man_."

Alisaie's gleeful crow at the mage's vibrantly blooming blush was silenced almost immediately by her twin.

"He is a year older than Alisaie and I, then," Alphinaud offered one bed over from G'raha and Lunya's spot, his sister groaning and falling back upon her own mattress at the reminder. "'Tis a strange thought, considering you were well over a century old as the Exarch, and had we met you when the Warriors first did we would have only been seventeen."

"I vote that we put him back to sleep for another turn of the sun," Alisaie declared to the ceiling, her tone making it utterly impossible to discern how much of it was a joke until she shot upright, a strange gleam in her eyes. "Wait. Alphinaud and I lived an extra year on the First! Even if it was not with our physical bodies we still _lived it_ so we're technically twenty four as well—"

" _Technically_ ," Lunya repeated, wagging a finger at them, wearing a little smirk. "Raha's older than you both combined if you try to use that logic and on legal papers here you're _still_ going to be twenty three."

Defeated, Alisaie promptly grabbed her pillow and flung it at G'raha's head, just barely missing his ears and getting a startled little hiss from him. "Why do you always have to be _right_?" she griped, before she wiggled in place to look back at the other two Warriors. "Seven, Mimi, how old are you two?"

"That's a secret," the gunbreaker sniffed. Mimi just continued examining the rifle in her lap without acknowledgement, her expression as neutral as ever.

"He's in his late forties, at best," announced Lunya, continuing over the other Lalafell's indignant _hey!_ "Looks around my dad's age."

Alphinaud looked over them contemplatively as the Respite's door creaked open behind them. "I would imagine Mimi the younger of the pair, but Viera lifespans and the dilemma of her _appearance_ —"

"Whose appearance, now?" Seven cawed. "Boy, I heard from Tataru of your precocious little crushes. Don't go getting any ideas about my partner—"

"I am married to my gun collection," Mimi cut in blandly.

"That is _NOT_ what I meant!"

 _"Alphie,"_ gasped Lunya, completely scandalized. "I thought you only had eyes for Il—"

"Do not speak of this to her!"

Alisaie cackled, pounding a fist on her bed as she crumpled over with laughter.

"Um," G'raha tried to cut in, clearly fighting off his own amusement, "We have a new visitor."

The announcement and the click of heeled boots on stone had them all twisting to look up at the newcomer and her shock of wild, baby pink hair. Myrrh smiled jovially at them as she removed her coat and slipped her traveling hat off her long, slender ears to set aside, clearly undisturbed by the disaster of a conversation that she walked in on.

"You are curious about our lifespans?" the polyglot asked them with a chuckle, taking a seat so she was no longer towering so high that Lunya and Seven had to crane their necks to look her in the eye. "I remember how I was during my ninth decade—not much taller than little Mimi is today. The difference in years lived between the Spoken races are quite curious, as is the age of maturation between them. Why, just two centuries ago I happened to be acquainted with an Au Ra well over three—"

"You're over _ninety?!"_ Alphinaud blurted, looking between both Viera women in horror while Lunya half-squawked " _Little?!"_

As if announcing that she was nearing a century of living was the absolute _last straw_ , Mimi spoke up. "Myrrh is more than four centuries old." 

"...I used to think sixteen was _ancient_ ," Alisaie bemoaned over Myrrh's engaging but terribly long lecture of the day, and in the end none of them got much rest. 


	9. the lioness' den

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day eight: clamor
> 
> "meet the parents" went way better than expected, depending on who you asked.

"When you assured me your parents would like me," G'raha began with a look on his face that said _please find me a tiny hole to hide in,_ "This isn't quite what I pictured."

Lunya paused, the rim of her teacup to her lips. The slightest tremor in her hand betrayed her silent laughter as she looked away, though it wasn't enough to shake her drink from her cup. "Is that so?"

There were a lot of things he expected from his first meeting with his in-laws, each worry born from a combination of his anxiety and an excess of teasing by his and Lunya's so-called _friends._ He knew he was Lunya's first romantic partner. He also knew that she hadn't been home for her family to navigate dangerous terrain like awkward crushes and first dates when she was a teenager. And above all of that, he knew that her family was composed entirely of ex-pirates, which boded poorly for the man who married their daughter (albeit in a different body and world) before they ever met him. He wasn't exactly experienced with this kind of thing either—childhood ostracization made particularly poor grounds to grow a healthy self-esteem and form relationships.

But Lunya had been insistent. _"For starters, my family's not normal, Raha. My parents hardly have room to judge_ me _for marrying like we did when they eloped at eighteen and twenty summers. Also, I have excellent taste and I wouldn't let them have the choice of_ not _loving you."_

In the end his fears really were for nothing. Her family was intimidatingly friendly, scrapping the shovel talk they apparently planned because _"it's not like we can threaten anything that Yeyema couldn't just do 'erself if ye die on 'er,"_ instead jumping straight into an endeavor to make a complete _fool_ out of him. G'raha could deal with little pranks and friendly jabs, having mastered both as… a mentally younger man, but Lunya's family had bafflement _perfected,_ refined as an art so well he felt like they really didn't ever need to be on the seas to swindle people. It took them an embarrassingly short time to have him convinced of their crew's tradition of fighting a goobbue with bare hands each summerand they almost had them out there trying the stupid thing _himself_ because they spoke so earnestly.

 _"They do that to_ everyone _,"_ Lunya had promised him, clearly fighting back a cackle at his expression when he came to her with the realization that he was being messed with. The pat she gave him on the back of his hand held the patience of a saint that'd taken a street urchin under her wing. _"The real tradition is our mud-wrestling matches each solstice."_

(And as much as he loved his inspiration, he didn't feel brave enough to try and argue the truth about _that_ out of her just yet.)

The problem now, maybe, was that he might have won her parents over a little _too_ hard.

Lunya's mother was an indomitable force, just as her daughter was, and when Lunya had first brought him through the door Lilina descended on him with a whirlwind of affection. She adopted him into their family on the spot, doting on him like he was her own flesh and blood and dropping his tribe letter before he could even ask her to, which he found overwhelming and relieving in equal measure. But she normally spoke with a blistering frankness, sharper than a knife's blade. She was almost unrecognizable as she was now speaking to two other Lalafellin women outside the front door, her honeyed words oozing with a sense of snobby refinement he normally associated with places like Eulmore or Ul'dah or some of the richer Thavnairian visitors they'd get as visitors in Sharlayan on occasion, her a head held high as she conversed with the two arrivals outside the threshold of her home.

"Sorry you hav'ta see her like this," Iris—the lone sister to Lunya's father—said with a shrug as she cut into the spread of pastries laid on the table before them. "She's normally.... normal."

"Never know what in the bleedin' 'ells she's natterin' about," muttered the oldest of Lunya's uncles, Ashe, some paces away. The Hyur sat in the rocking chair by the fireplace, nursing a mug of something that was most certainly alcohol before it was even noon. "Smart of 'er to not invite 'em in, though. Coupl'a rats, those two." 

Outside, the very barbed conversation was increasing in volume, to the delight of the little peanut gallery watching inside.

"My Reruru's fiancé graduated top of his class from one of the most prodigious universities of Radz-at-Han," schmoozed Deruru Deru, who third uncle Shore pointed out as from a farm three hills over. "Oh, forgive me for bragging, my dear, I didn't mean to be so insensitive about having children who finished their edu _cation_."

Lilina's smile was impossibly cold and warm all at once. "Don't worry, Deruru, I know you are dealing with the stress of your farm falling apart," she chimed with a venomous cheer that she had _absolutely_ passed down to her daughter. "Yeyema's husband is a graduate of Sharlayan's Studium, did I tell you? He's a very handsome man, I'll be sure to invite you to see my _adorable grandchildren_."

"She's entirely genuine, if that helps," Lunya offered, grinning wickedly as G'raha started to sink in his seat from embarrassment and the knowledge that Lilina was expecting grandkids, _plural_. Lilina prattled on and on, her list of praises for him so long he _knew_ Lunya fed half of them to her mother herself. 

"Ooh, yeah," Iris agreed. "She doesn't usually go on for this long when she uses us to brag. I guess this is why Luka's hidin'."

"— _MY SON-IN-LAW_ —"

Lilina scoffed, still saccharine sweet while clearly losing her composure. "I DON'T SUPPOSE YOUR _FUTURE_ SON-IN-LAW HAPPENS TO BE A _SHARLAYAN ARCHON_ —"

Tentatively from his position as one Miqo'te blob of uninhibited shyness, G'raha started, "I hope I am not being presumptuous, but Mrs. Lina—" Lunya, her uncles, and Iris all shot him a warning look, glancing surreptitiously out the window. Lilina didn't hear his slip-up, thankfully. "— _Mom_ … has a history with Mrs. Deru?"

"You could say that. Y'see that kid?" Shore jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the third Lalafellin woman out in the front yard, looking bored out of her mind. "She pulled Shortcake by the pigtail once when they was wee sprouts, and naturally our girl socked her in the eye in exchange. Deruru got in a whole fuss about it, but Lilina told her—and you must pardon my language— _perhaps if you spent as much time raising your child properly as you do shoving that foul thing you call a nose into goobbue shite_ mrgpwhgphgffffh—"

"You're _not_ s'pposed to repeat the whole thing in polite company," second uncle Merrin scolded as he leaned over Shore from the back of the sofa, a hand shoved over the Elezen's mouth. "Ever since that happened, our families have been rivals. Not that either of them gave the rest of us a choice."

"I fhink Ma jush gesh a kick outta ifh," Iris added helpfully around a mouthful of lemon cake. "But I'd lobe t' punt Deruru's shister one of theesh days." 

Maybe finally feeling sorry for him, Lunya ran a hand through G'raha's hair as he planted his head in her lap, overwhelmed. "I don't suppose you still doubt that they adore you?"

As Lilina and Deruru continued, unrelenting in their compliments for their daughters' partners, he could only sigh with a humiliated happiness.


	10. when all the lights are out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day nine: lush
> 
> the isle of val is gone, but melmeltan is still here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my ocs  
> lunya lanya: one of many warriors of light. lalafell.  
> melmeltan macha: a student of baldesion, old friend to krile, g'raha tia. half miqo'te, half lalafell.
> 
> friends' ocs  
> coco cocoda: @windupairship  
> reese farouel: @winduphaurchefant
> 
>   
> [way back home - shaun](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rP7ziPDDt0)  
> 

Before they ever got on the boat back at Kugane's port, Melmeltan knew that Val was not going to be how she left it. Krile had warned her so, had continued to warn her every time she came back from an expedition with news and Melmeltan expressed her growing desire to follow her, to see what had become of their home with her own two eyes, to help her friend on her mission. But Krile had turned her down time after time. 

_It's dangerous_ , she said _._

 _You cannot fight_ , she argued _._

 _You do not want to see it,_ she promised _._

"I don't understand _why_ ," read scrawled letters in the compartment of Melmeltan's old bedroom desk, letters she'd been too cowardly to send to her friends that were out fighting what and where she could not. "Why is she the only one who gets to mourn? She's not the only one who has lost, who _is_ lost—"

If— _when_ her parents heard her crying in the middle of the night, missing Master Galuf and Raha and Coco and Reese, two of who were gone and two who were far, far, far away, they didn't barge into her room to confront her. That wasn't how their family worked, though it'd been common among the Students, for Raha to physically step between Krile and Ejika, for Krile to _force_ Ejika to apologize when he went too far, for Ejika to angrily fling her door open and demand proper communication. 

But her mother and father cared, in their own way, in the herbal teas Mother would leave by her door and the way Papa would curl his tail around her side when she stumbled through their greenhouse the next morning, dark shadows beneath her eyes, and for their sake she picked the broken pieces of herself together and held them in place, a fragile and false semblance of something close to _okay_.

She never stopped tasting that bitterness beneath her tongue, between the gaps of her teeth and on the dip below her nose, but that was no one's business but her own, because she didn't even have the right to act like she'd been abandoned by her mentor and all her friends when she never made a step forward to meet them on her own.

The sky above Eureka was orange when they arrived, the sun glistening on the horizon line in greeting. Krile murmured something to Raha and Lunya as they left their little boat, of how they would reach the Headquarters, of a memorial for Ejika. So deep in their plans, they didn't see the anxious twitch of Melmeltan's ear.

A salted, heavy wind was sweeping through Port Surgate, driving her forward, out the gate faster than her feet could carry her. 

The Headquarters, looming high above the twisted, verdant landscape mocked her as she stood within its shadows, gargantuan vines rolling along rocky cliff-faces she had no memory of climbing when they'd first brought her here, the one place that promised to not tear her apart like the rest of the motherland wanted to for her rare heritage. The flora that sprawled beneath her feet was a treat to the eyes of a botanist's daughter, as colourful and varied as the new inhabitants of the isle. Flowers entirely different from the ones she once clumsily wove together for her oldest friends, flowers none of them would have seen since they'd scattered to the wind in the fifth year of the 7th Umbral Era, following a call she couldn't hear.

It wasn't Val, but Eureka was beautiful, and that just made her feel worse for still longing for a time and place that only existed in her dreams.

Footsteps padded softly through the wildflowers to her, steps so light they could only belong to a Lalafell or one that was at least half. Krile or Lunya or Coco. She waited, frigid, for an _are you alright?_ that never came, and knew. 

"You would have loved it here, before it became like this," she told the flowers instead of the boy at her back. _If only you had visited,_ sang the venom in her roots. _If only you never left to begin with_.

"I think I would have too," Coco said, his voice unwavering. Changed. Eorzea had made him and Reese stronger, and Krile and Raha too, and she was still playing catch-up, lost in the memories of an island gone for six turns of the sun while everyone had moved forward without her. 

"I honestly thought I'd feel better if I saw it myself," she confessed, finally turning to him with a weak laugh. "I'm a big idiot, aren't I?" 

For years her best friend had followed her as a thin, nervous shadow, and now he stood taller than her, the softness in his face replaced with a steadfast, quiet courage, so much so that she hardly recognized him upon their reunion. Even now, as he shook his head furiously at her, brow furrowed, she thought it a shame that he wouldn't cling to her anymore. "It's not wrong to feel," he told her, a thousand thousand apologies in his eyes. "To feel angry, or sad, or lonely. It's not wrong to be mortal. ...It's not wrong to cry."

The blustering gales of Eureka Anemos clipped through the meadow, scattering petals and shaking the trees around them. It never used to be this windy, its aether never so saturated that she could feel it seep in her bones. It was never going to be home, but it didn't need to be.

"Val is gone," she said quietly, blinking as the wind chilled the wetness on her cheeks. 

"You're still here," he promised her, taking her hand in his. "And I am too."


	11. the wheel is come full circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 10: avail
> 
> [5.3 spoilers]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my ocs  
> asteria, student to azim, pre-sundered lunya lanya
> 
> tumblr friends' ocs  
> atalanta: student of emet-selch | @fistsoflightning  
> cerberus: baby | @windupcatgirl  
> hemera: azem, the fourteenth member of the convocation, the traveler | @to-the-voiceless  
> hermes: chief of the bureau of the traveler | @winduhaurchefant  
> melisseus: bakery owner | @fistsoflightning  
> pan: fluffy fiend | @verbroil

"Asteria," Emet-Selch said slowly, using what remained of the patience he normally reserved for this particular friend (and nuisance, one of many) of his. "Would you care to explain—"

"Not to _you_ ," Asteria snipped, and then she flounced off into the city in a mass of crepuscular curls, leaving him to wonder if she picked up that sass from Atalanta. She was so sweet when they were younger, when they hadn't known what lay beyond the city limits, before they'd both met Hemera— _Azem_. Beneath her feet as she walked away, stray motes of light glimmered, leaving burning spots in the darkness when he closed his eyes.

The bakery was warmly lit when he found it, the sweet scent of honey ripe in the air as he stumbled in for the first time despite knowing of it for years. The only occupants were familiar figures without their masks on, seated at one of the tables closest to the counter, talking with genuine smiles and a hushed intimacy he knew he was intruding on. Pastries took up most of the space between them, followed by the sound of forks pinging against plates. The first to notice him grimaced.

"Honorable Emet-Selch," Hermes said, training his lips into a thin, professional smile. He made a move to put his mask back on, but the woman across from him stopped him, a distinct red mask resting upon her lap.

Azem looked Emet-Selch up and down, solar flare eyes settling on his frown. Free from the veil of her mask, her raised eyebrow was plain to see. "Well, Hades? Go on, explain how you upset Asteria. I'll know if you're lying."

"You—" He stopped before he could really start, realizing there was no sense in asking how she knew. Azem had, for better or for worse, on purpose or by accident, taken Asteria under her wing. Or maybe it was more like Asteria _forced_ herself into a place by the Traveler's side, worming her way into her heart much like she had to himself. Regardless, it seemed the Fourteenth knew his overeager friend better than he did now, though the thought made him ache in both the head and the heart. What a headache, the paperwork these two made. "Not even a hello for your colleague?"

"Atalanta is going to pop your head like a grape when they find out you've upset her again," Azem said very unhelpfully, her soul flaring with amusement at the thought of his imminent reckoning by his slightly-feral student. "I don't need to greet you, you know I'm coming in tomorrow for reports. Melisseus—"

The woman appeared by their side with a glass jar, filled to the brim with golden honey, her smile warm beneath the shadow of her mask, though she gave Emet-Selch just a brief, formal bow before disappearing back behind the counter. Azem flicked the lid off with a practiced twist of her wrist, just as easy as he'd watched her rev her motorbike—the wretched, miserably noisy thing, bound to land her and Asteria in an accident and get Hythlodaeus laughing loud enough to stir the whole city once they did—and tapped a spoonful of it into her tea.

To Azem's left, Pan—who, if he remembered correctly, was the one who came up with the concept for butterflies, which were apparently less edible than their name suggested—made a pitying _tsk tsk_. "They will 'pop' him once they find out he was _here_. This is their sanctuary, and now you're mixing work with play."

"And Hemera is not?" Emet-Selch said with a scoff. "I am just here to see if Asteria has passed through. She lost her temper with me, which I can _only_ attribute to the poor influence she's been around these days. I'd tell you to scold your student if I didn't already know you have no intention to, Azem, so I'll have to speak with her."

There was a long, low noise of dissatisfaction. Another of Atalanta's friends, Cerberus, looked up at him from where they were slouched in their chair, head rested against Hermes' elbow. "You mean you're going to _apologize_ , yeah? She doesn't get mad for no reason."

Azem leaned back in her seat, stirring contemplatively at her drink, her cheek in hand. "For someone so invested in the souls of the Underworld, you truly lose sight for the living, Hades."

A staring contest was born then between the two Convocation members, the only sound in the bakery the careful clicks and scraping in the kitchen. He paused, preparing his debate, but—

"Hades," Asteria said coldly as she came down the stairs behind the counter, Atalanta right behind her. Her latest creation lingered on her shoulders, little motes of starlight, such fragile and tiny things of aether and glimmering so brightly he'd first thought she could see the souls of the Underworld herself before it'd become clear that they were not truly alive.

 _Pointless_ , he had called them idly, pondering over any way they could make something useful of them. A slip of the tongue. He'd always been one for practicality—she knew this as well as Hythlodaeus had, which was why he wore this title now. But Asteria had stopped, the excitement on her face when she'd found him again after returning from another voyage with Azem slipping, turning into a frown. 

_Is it wrong_ , she said, voice decidingly leveled despite the disappointment in the turn of her lips, _to make things for the sake of it? Does it need to have a point?_

Well, it wasn't as if he had control over all creations. He told her as much. reminded her of his place as the Architect, that for the betterment of Amaurot they needed things that would actively benefit them before turning to idle playthings.

 _All things have worth_ , Asteria had argued then,folding her arms with golden eyes ablaze behind her mask, her posture a gleaming mirror of her beloved (and insufferable) mentor. _Even if_ you _decide they don't. I don't know how to explain to you that you should care for more than Amaurot and her glittering spires and the perfect idyllicism you're so intent to project onto its streets. You're so quick to decide what is beneath us, what is less worthy, what is pointless_ —

 _And I suppose you learned that idealism from Hemera,_ he sighed, before she harrumphed and allowed the miniature star in her hands to burst into light. 

Atalanta looked far from pleased at his presence while they hovered over Asteria's shoulder, but he made no move to beckon his student over while the shorter of the pair was glaring at him. "Asteria, you are being ridiculous," he said.

The audience rumbled their _now he's done it_ and _yikes_. Asteria swelled, shoulders tense in the dark shadows of her robe, displeasure crackling like lightning on Atalanta's face and flaring in disappointment in Azem's soul.

"I have no reason to argue empathy to someone who so thoroughly lacks it," the woman decreed, brilliant and blinding as a supernova before she turned on her heel and marched out the bakery doors. "I won't waste my breath." 

And when he looked back to Azem for some semblance of sympathy, she only shook her head, magic tattoos gleaming on her arms as she turned away to a spread of grape jam on bread.

* * *

"Well, little hero?" he snarled a hundred thousand lifetimes later, the echo of their—of _his_ world falling to nothingness around them once again. "No words left? No hopeless little speech to argue your worth?"

"I have no reason to argue empathy to someone who so thoroughly lacks it," the small woman hissed, brilliant and blinding as a supernova, her soul bleeding as colourfully as the would-be Azem and Atalanta beside her. "I won't waste my breath."

He closed his eyes, phosphenes from Asteria's brilliance still blinding him all these years later, finding that he still didn't understand how she would have loved the feeble and broken things that stood before him now that she was gone.


	12. if this is love (then love completes me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day eleven: ultracrepidarian
> 
> g'raha's just trying his best to impress the town’s cute boutique owner, against all better judgement and stares of second-hand embarrassment from krile. 
> 
> [modern au]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr friends' ocs!  
> a'dewah and zaya: @fistsoflightning  
> a'satina: @windupcatgirl  
> reese: @verbroil  
> rjoli: @verbroil  
> unnamed jeweler next door: @to-the-voiceless

The boutique was, all in all, a welcomed reprieve from the midsummer sun beating down on the back of Krile's ears. Blissfully air-conditioned and filled with gentle baby blues and whites, it was a soft sight to take in, and it was clear no expense was spared in making sure the armchairs scattered about between the racks of colourful clothing were the softest, plushest damn thing any poor soul in this town would ever feel beneath their bottom unless they had the privilege of knowing a moogle. 

The _best_ benefit by far though of being in Atelier Lunya for the day was getting to watch her best friend humiliate himself in front of her _other_ (objectively cuter) best friend.

 _Love really does make you stupid,_ Krile texted her class's groupchat, and almost immediately Ejika messaged back _wtf does that mean harlot?_ She smirked, looking up from her phone to watch G'raha pointedly ignore the frantic buzzing in his pocket as Melmeltan followed up with a half-dozen emojis and Mikoto linked some scientific paper debating the actual presence of a correlation between love and a shift in intelligence that none of them were going to read until _after_ they were back on campus.

Her dearest and dumbest friend's campaign for today, it seemed, was to impress one Lunya Lanya with his grand knowledge of textile engineering—knowledge that both he and Krile knew full well he _didn't actually have_.

"—then the properties of stardust cotton over ruby—" Lunya was currently rambling, as if her conversation partner really understood any of it, her eyes lit up with a genuine glee at being able to discuss one of her five loves (placing before dogs but immediately after dogs in clothes, if Krile remembered right) at full capacity. G'raha was staring at her like she'd split the heavens in twain and descended to earth to tell him she stole the moon from the sky just for him, which was equally adorable and infuriating because he still hadn't made a real move on her despite Lunya looking at him the _exact same way_ whenever someone accidentally gave him an opening to talk in length about his most recent thesis paper and he wouldn't shut up for at least an hour. That affection was probably the one thing keeping the jeweler next door from giving him the gigantic noogie he deserved every time they gathered down on the beach for a bonfire at the end of the week.

Inviting him over for the summer was definitely one of the best ideas Krile ever had, though. Thaliak knew that G'raha needed more friends, and he and Lunya complemented each other so well it already felt like they'd known each other for ages. 

Except _,_ Krile mourned, that there was one particular problem with their budding relationship: she honestly didn't think she'd be playing wingman for both of them the whole break. Lunya was frequently (and completely behind her back) described by friends as something like a very aggressive guard chihuahua, so Krile foolishly assumed that most developments would come from the designer's end. Instead, the two seemed equally intent on dancing around the subject, so bleeding obvious you could write and film a 14-season long slow-burn romcom about it.

Her phone pinged, and she spared a glance to her last Instagramdapor post five minutes ago.

> Liked by **moonbride** and 14 others.
> 
> **krilemaybe** : Apparently he's minoring in textile engineering now 🙄  
>  View all 3 comments.  
>  **its_not_mihtra_its_mhitra:** I'm sending this to Shtola.  
>  **tsuntsunjika** : youre fucking joking. hes looking at an allagan textbook or smthn right???

And of course, since G'raha was so focused on winning the Dunce of the Year award, he hadn't seen it yet. He could freak out over it later, maybe after Lunya finally called him out on his bullshit, because Krile could tell by the slightest rise of one lip corner that their seamstress knew he was lying through his teeth and she was considering how to squash the truth out of him.

"—repellent with weaving in medicinal plant fibers. They had a mint-infused fiber last year and I was like _oh my gods, I need to get my hands on that_ , and I wasn't about to drop all my gil on it so I may have coerced A'dewah into letting me use the mint from his garden." Lunya took a deep breath, her eyes shining violet half-moons as she beamed.

"Coerced," Krile repeated, voice flat with _is that what we call it now?_ energy.

Lunya winked.

This was apparently taken as a deliberate act on Krile's part to give G'raha more time to come up with a response, because he gave her a very thankful look before he jumped into some very, very made-up dissertation on the benefits of homegrown mint essence being infused in fiber.

 _Dumbass_ , Krile thought fondly, only mildly impressed by his acting skills. _What kind of weirdo flirts like this?_

"Raha," Lunya cut in smoothly halfway through his careening of an on-the-spot speech about lemons being a strong contender for mosquito repellent over peppermint. She folded her arms across her chest, looking at him thoughtfully. "You might be thinking about _citronella_."

"Oh, yes. Similar words, and all. We had a professor from Ishgard last year." He was grasping at the end of his hoodie's sleeves now, a major tell that he was lying, and under Lunya's waiting, discerning stare he quickly caved. "Okay, I'm not actually minoring in textile engineering. I don't know anything about clothes or plants."

Grinning with the fanged smile of a predator that had caught her prey, Lunya leaned toward him conspiratorially. Hands behind her back, emanating her Maximum Cuteness and Innocence™ aura, she said, "I know."

"You _KNOW_ —" G'raha sputtered, tail frizzing. Krile bit her lip hard to stop herself from laughing, not even bothering to be discreet about taking a picture of him this time.

Lunya huffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "You told me you were minoring in music when we first met, stupid. Also your _shoes_."

The two vacationers froze. How in the Mother's name did they forget _that_ specific, incredibly important detail that undermined everything he'd done today _?_ It was probably lost beneath the overpowering memory of Lunya insulting G'raha's boots the very second he first stepped through this boutique's front door, actually. 

"I just thought it was really cute," Lunya continued over their paralyzed shock, dazzling as the light from the front windows refracted a rainbow from her earrings and into her hair, illuminating the glowing, indulgent triumph on her face as G'raha's face grew more and more visibly warm. "I've never had anyone go that far to try and impress me before."

"That'sa lie," Sati chirped over by the shoes, and the three of them all jumped in alarm when they realized she'd slipped in at some point. Tongue between the gap of her teeth, she grinned and said very matter-of-factly, "It's just the first time Lunya's _cared_."

 _"A'satina Lhea!"_ a face-flushed Lunya shrieked, leaping off the stool and charging toward her as fast as her tiny heels would let her, which was surprisingly _very_. Laughter and the jingle of the bells above the door chimed in unison as Sati turned tail and fled out the store, nearly slamming into Zaya as they went to open the door at the same time, a package under their arm. "Zaya, _GET HER!"_

The street outside was filled with chaotic noise from their favourite courier dropping their delivery—"IT'S FINE, IT'S JUST CANDY FROM MY DAD!"—"Zayaaaa, let me goooo!"— _"Don't even think about it or I'll turn you into a wallet!"_ —"MY TAIL! _AAAAH MY TINY TAIL! MY CUTEST TRAIT!_ "—"Sati, so help me I will _kick your ass off this curb."_ —a deliriously happy squeal and an outraged holler following quickly as the three collapsed on the sidewalk outside.

G'raha, his face still red, finally turned back to Krile and her raised eyebrows. She sighed, patting the arm of her chair so he could sit there and she could thump the side of her head against his leg. 

"You're so _stupid_ ," she whined in time with her thwacking. "Both of you."

"I know," G'raha groaned, having the humility to hide his still blushing face in his hands. After a moment though he peeked down at her through a gap in his fingers. "You think Professor Galuf will let me visit for winter break too?"

"Uh, _duh."_ Krile rolled her eyes as they watched Lunya furiously and victoriously pin Sati beneath her, squashing the girl's face between her hands and demanding to know what she was. "But _I_ won't if you don't ask her out before we go back to the city. I'm gonna owe Rjoli and Reese gil at this rate."


	13. last resort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 12: tooth and nail
> 
> the one where lunya opens the seventh gate just to spite jannequinard (and for other less petty reasons, but mostly that).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my ocs  
> lunya  
> theo
> 
> tumblr friends  
> a'dewah, duscha, zaya: fistsoflightning  
> reese: winduphaurchefant

Her life—though she doesn't think it precious, doesn't see how others saw a point in nurturing its flame—is not hers to throw away. 

It is her mother's life. It is her father's. It belongs to Noraxia and Moenbryda and the broken bodies of the Scions she had to bury, to the lives that were given so she and the others could continue moving forward. It belongs to a little girl in Ul'dah with hair as pitch as night and an all-consuming love for her family that drove her beyond their ken, and it belongs to an old man from the east who died during the night of a falling moon to save her. To desire death or to let it take her within its grasp without a fight is to spit in the face of everyone who brought her this far, who kept the blood in her veins flowing and the rise and fall of her chest going.

Her life is hers, there is no mistake—but it isn't hers to throw away, so she's not going to die here.

That's what Lunya has to promise herself as she takes a steadying breath, reaching out to grasp for a tendril of aether, finding Haurchefant's among the bright din of the Lifestream. The others are watching, shellshocked or helpless, exhausted from their rampage through Ishgard's holiest building in a bid to rescue Ser Aymeric. Among their healers, she's the only one left who can try; Duscha and Theo have both expended their mana and the remnants of Reese's own attempt to mend the wound still linger on her friend's shaking hands and in the glowing crevasse in her beloved's chest. She knows A'dewah would bleed himself to death if he could but she will not let him, not when Reese asked her personally, though she knows Reese hadn't known what a drastic extent it would take for something like this, to drag someone back from the brink.

The final heaven's gate does not open to her so much as it bursts beneath her beckoning hand. 

_To open the seventh gate is impossible_ , she remembers from the bitter, half-hearted lesson Jannequinard gave her once, and were it not for the immense flood of astral magic crushing her now she would smirk. _Except upon death._

And how convenient it is that she has already seen the face of death and kissed her goodbye once, isn't it? 

_**"LIVE!"**_ The swansong light of a star collapsing in on itself drowns the platform within the welkin, and the world warps around her, the moonlit skies of La Noscea swimming within her vision and swelling her lungs with empyrean wind. With freezing palms and a boiling in her stomach, she reaches heavensward and knows that no matter how highly the cards are stacked against her favour she _will_ turn the tides; the stars are her birthright and she is coming home. 

(She is only mortal, though, and knows that if this pushed her to her limit, if this could end up breaking her soul as it did to Kichirou on the night of the Calamity, it would be a lovely, lovely death indeed, to return to dust among the stars and have nothing left of her remain. But fear does not make victors or champions of the realm.)

And when she entwines Haurchefant's aether with her own, a binary star given form, he breathes, taking the force of Vylbrand's storms straight from her chest and into his own.

The light of their forced stasis fades as her knees give out beneath her and she sways, pulled forward by the invisible tether between their aether. The last thing she feels before the night swallows her whole is Zaya's scaled arms wrapping around her and holding her close, and her last thought is a promise to not go supernova while she is still a gentle, nascent star and she has not yet finished burning.


	14. >TEXT CHANNELS #mom-panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day thirteen (free day): badinage
> 
> lunya’s first mistake was telling her friends she had any sort of feelings for the new boy in town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its 50% chatroom fic and im so sorry

> **closest to hell** ok. fuck.  
>  **closest to hell** earlier today raha went off on this huge tangent about old sharlayan fashion for me and he brought in these books that were in limited print!! exclusively in sharlayan!!! and he went on for like, three hours and i. was just enraptured. it was so endearing and im like, im having a moment. ive been having a moment and i AM having a moment. like ideologically i dont agree with men but they REALLY went off with this one  
>  **closest to hell** twelve help me i cant NOT kiss him  
>  **banned for baby crimes** but you wont :3c  
>  **closest to hell** but i wont because im a coward yes, we established this last week and you and zaya squashed all the fruit gummies my dad sent me, i know  
>  **closest to hell** let me cry about this cute boy kriles been hiding from me for years in PEACE  
>  **banned for baby crimes** lunya youre posting cringe :''')  
>  **closest to hell** satina im going to put thumbtacks in your shoes 

"We are sitting at the same table," Hanami finally snapped, glowering over the rim of her glasses while she stabbed her spoon at one of the pastries spread before them, the ones the café owners special-ordered to work around her six million allergies, "So I do not understand why you are texting each other."

"'Cause the others aren't here yet, _Grandma_." Lunya rolled her eyes, ducking her head in time to avoid her friend's swing. "Also, like, I'm _not_ going to talk about this out loud in public while Tataru's on shift, I don't have a _death wish_." 

Hanami frowned harder than she already was. "You _just_ called me Grandma."

Sati reached across the table and took the Au Ra's hand in hers, patting the back of it very patiently. "Yes, yes, you're very scary, Nami. But you don't gossip—"

 _"I do_ ," Tataru announced cheekily as she pushed through the café's front door, striding across the patio to them with their drinks. "The whole town already knows Lunya's got a crush on that boy visiting the Baldesions for the summer, by the way. It's just not exciting anymore." 

"I'm gonna get Seven to review bomb your Moogle page," Lunya promised her as she handed out their drinks, and Tataru just grinned, wriggling her fingers slyly at them before she went back to work.

> **local breadhead** lmaooo you two  
>  **local breadhead** also we're on our way! we're a lil late cause eos knocked over the baguettes 🥺  
>  **Hanami Hagane** That is what you get for letting your cat have free rein in your bakery.  
>  **reese is in pieces :O(** they _yell_ if we dont :(  
>  **reese is in pieces :O(** also has anyone heard from zaya?  
>  **this says zaya** 🏃🏽🌻💪  
>  **closest to hell** i think that means theyre heading over from a'dewahs shop  
>  **banned for baby crimes** ok ok ok so  
>  **banned for baby crimes** lunya. we take your little man to the arcade  
>  **local breadhead** little man pffff  
>  **Hanami Hagane** He is taller than you.  
>  **this says zaya 🤣**  
>  **banned for baby crimes** NOT EMOTIONALLY!!!  
>  **banned for baby crimes** and like. youre like, freaky good at ddr and all the games n stuff, so you can just show off all night and impress him and he'll be like  
>  **banned for baby crimes** "ooh miss lanya youre sooo cool ooooh please make out with me"  
>  **closest to hell** you just want me to get the tickets to get you that big strawberry plush you told the aliapohs to order as a prize since ihgets banned from there for making khloe cry  
>  **banned for baby crimes** maybe so  
>  **reese is in pieces :O(** you could just  
>  **reese is in pieces :O(** ask him on a date?  
>  **Hanami Hagane** I agree with Reese. You are both so obvious, he will say yes if you ask him.  
>  **closest to hell** i dont need to take advice from linkcord light theme users  
>  **local breadhead** f  
>  **banned for baby crimes** f  
>  **this says zaya 😬**  
>  **reese is in pieces :O( :(**


	15. meet me where the sunlight ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 14: part
> 
> summer is at its end, and so is g'raha, his wits, and lunya's patience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its more main street au i cant get ENOUGH of this bs

For not even remotely close to the first time that summer, Krile declared that inviting G'raha over for break was seriously one of her smartest ideas ever. He plucked her Lalafell-sized luggage from her hands and plopped it into the trunk of their car with effortless ease, completing their packing in half the time it normally took her to even drag her grandfather's giant textbooks down the driveway.

"I thiiiink that's everything," she mused, grinning as she wiped sweat from her forehead and let him slam the trunk shut. "Well, besides your nerves." 

"I _know_ ," G'raha grumbled, tail twisted in a terse loop. The sun was still blistering at the end of the Fourth Umbral Moon and it was infuriatingly hard to keep cool, even with the ocean drifting a pleasant breeze up to the Baldesion family's home, which only added to his building agitation. "I've known all break."

"Raha, she's not going to say _no_ —"

Exhale. Inhale. He shoved his hands in his pockets, steadying himself and his foolish heart. "I don't think I could handle it if she _does_. I've never—we've known each other since high school, you know I'm not good at making friends—"

"Could've fooled me," Krile muttered, earning a stink eye for her troubles. _"Mr. Popular."_

"—I've never been close to anyone like _this_. I can't, just, what if I'm just setting myself up for heartbreak? What if I ruin the best summer I've ever had because I couldn't control my heartOW! _Krile!"_

With her cheeks puffed in frustration, hopping on one foot across the driveway to retrieve the sandal she (rightfully) flung at his face, Krile looked awfully like a chipmunk. Not that he was about to tell her that. "You're not _supposed_ to be able to control your heart, dumbass, take a psych or philosophy or biology class or something when we get back. Don't tell me you think breaking _both_ your hearts is the better option here."

Their intense staredown, mired by Krile's exhaustion with the whole matter and G'raha's nervous twitchiness, was broken abruptly as the kitchen window swung open behind them and Galuf Baldesion leaned out, brandishing a spray bottle of cleaning solution in one hand and a wet rag in the other as he half-shouted half-sang, _"ONE DAY MOREEEEEEEEEEE!_ ...Oh—" He blinked, stunned by their gaping mouths. "I. Er. Forgot you were out here still. Let's break for lunch, kids! _"_

Blissfully ignorant to the last four months worth of hijinks by his granddaughter and student and their current dilemma of how to end this YA romance novel, the old man quickly retreated back through the window, doing his best to hum a half-dozen harmonies all at once while his dog barked in questionable harmony. 

Enveloped in silence after the display, G'raha finally said, "Your grandpa's really cool."

"I know, you filthy subject-changer."

Lunch was a box of sandwiches and the last bottle of juice left in the fridge, and as they ate around the kitchen table Krile regaled her grandfather with some of their politer, family-friendly exploits in town. Galuf positively _beamed_ when she pointed out just how many friends G'raha managed to make, patting his student eagerly on the shoulder.

"And of course you will be coming back for winter break with us," Galuf said without even being prompted to, getting G'raha to choke on his sandwich. "You are part of the family, my boy. No need to be shy."

"Next time we're bringing Ejika," Krile swore with an unsubtle flick of her wrist to toss a tomato slice beneath the table. At her feet, Eureka boofed as he scarfed it up _._ "Look at Raha, he's got tan lines! No shadows under his eyes! Friends! Ejika _needs_ time off, the boy has a stick up his a—"

"Krile," Galuf interrupted sternly. "Eat your vegetables." There was a quiet _mind your language_ there too. She groaned, earning a snicker from G'raha.

"Yes, Grandpa."

Down the hall, the front door swung open with a gust of chatter and wind. Eureka bolted out from the tablecloth and skidded across the tiled floor into the hallway, and there was a shriek of delight as the dog presumably pounced on one or two of their unexpected guests.

"Barging in!" a familiar voice sang over the din. A small stampede of footsteps echoed in the hall before Lunya and their friends rounded the corner into the kitchen, bearing sunny smiles (or a neutral, relaxed expression from Hanami) and several pastry boxes in their arms. When the designer caught G'raha's eye she winked, sending a flustered trill through his spine. "Sorry to show up without notice, Mr. Baldesion. We brought dessert and snacks for your trip."

"Oh, how very kind of you, children." 

As Galuf got up to fuss over the sudden appearance of two dozen or so grown adults funneled themselves into his quaint but unbearably tiny kitchen, G'raha watched, entranced, as Lunya made a beeline to him instead of remaining with the crowd around the other end of the table. She was wearing brilliant yellows and blues today, a splash of bright sunshine against the antique furniture of the Baldesion manor, and a painful reminder that he had to leave the sunshine of her and the town he'd fallen in love with to go back to campus, all to pursue a dream from his youth.

"Raha." When Lunya leaned toward him, her smile bright as ever, he followed the curve of her on instinct and rose from his chair without really thinking about it. "Mind if we talk outside for a bit?"

_Now or never, lover boy_ , he heard Krile crow in the back of his mind. The _real_ Krile stared at him from the other side of the table, wiggling her eyebrows and making hand gestures that probably meant something like _"do something or DIE"_ in what was decidedly not the same sign language Zaya communicated with. 

The rest of their friends didn't seem to notice as they slipped out of the kitchen and through the backdoor, or maybe they were ignoring them on purpose. G'raha swallowed as he stopped at the foot of the deck's stairs, turning to look at Lunya from where she stood three steps up, closer to eye level with him.

"So, what are your plans?" she asked, still genial and sweet as she looked past him, out across the sprawling gardens in the backyard. He wondered who would tend to them once the Baldesions were back at the university. It'd be weird to not see Eureka gallivanting across it, frisbee in mouth. "Not for like, what you're doing on the ride home. How's school gonna go for you?"

"By spring I'll be wrapping up my Masters. After that… I suppose I'll get an internship somewhere." There were good opportunities, he knew, in Mor Dhona. Especially if he wanted to keep his focus on Allag, as his father encouraged him to since childhood. But Mor Dhona was in the opposite direction of the uni, and even further from here.

Lunya hummed. "Sjanna's looking for an assistant, y'know." His grimace must have said a lot, because she started to laugh, poking a finger to his chest. "Well, that doesn't matter right now—you're coming down for Starlight, right? Krile said she was gonna ask."

"Oh," he said faintly, keenly aware that if he said nothing now, if he were to still come back for winter, the ache for her would only grow worse. "I'll try my best, though I… can't make any promises."

For the first time in their friendship, a perfect silence fell between them as Lunya stared at him, a sheen of something terrible and disappointed in her twilight eyes. The distant cry of seagulls over the crashing waves of the sea felt louder despite their distance from the beach, and against his will he heard his tail go _swish swoosh_ as it tapped against the bannister.

And then Lunya tackled him off the porch.

As they tumbled into the grass, G'raha found himself flat on his back, wide-eyed and startled at the Lalafell now straddling his waist, pounding her fist against his chest without even half the strength he knew she actually had, her starshine hair pooling over him and onto the lawn. 

"Gods, would it _KILL_ you to be selfish for once?" Lunya snapped in an unexpected rage, her small hand fisted in his shirt. "If you made me spend this whole summer pining away like some fucking besotted soap opera heroine for no good reason so HELP me, G'raha Tia, I'll make you rue the day you stepped into my boutique with those stupid shoes and your cute butt and—"

"My _what_ ," G'raha squeaked, only for Lunya to make a shrill, terribly angry and utterly adorable noise and collapse against his chest, shaking with an unquelled fury.

With the trepidation of a man who could very well have his hand bitten off by a feral animal, he reached a hand up to stroke her hair.

Lunya's trembling stilled. There were tears in her eyes when she sat up and looked at him, shimmering, faceted gems glittering against twilight. 

"Raha, I'm in love with you," she told him, brusque and ardent and beautiful as she shattered his heart in her hand and made it whole and he felt a crimson deeper than his hair bloom across his face. "I want you to come back for Starlight and go on a date with me and if you tell me now that you're not interested then you can go home and we can still be friends but I will _never_ , ever forgive you for getting my hopes up."

His breath rattled. "I've never been in a relationship," he admitted through what little strength he had with his back to the humble earth, his heart at the mercy of the one goddess he personally chose to worship. "Let alone a long-distance one. I can't—you deserve the best—I don't, I don't want you to be _hurt_ by this." 

"Neither have I, stupid," she hissed, digging her nails into his collarbone. "And when have I ever cared about what I _deserve?_ When did you start seeing me as weak enough to care about being hurt? I don't want a pretty, perfect small town romance perfectly packaged in a box with no troubles, I want _you!"_

_Oh_ , said his heartbeat in his throat and in his ears, a chorus rising, giving form to elation and terror.

"Oh," whispered G'raha, afraid that speaking any louder would wake him from the dream. 

Lunya bit back a frustrated noise, hanging her head. "If I was wrong—" 

He shook his head, feeling his braid come loose beneath him. Ensconced by moonlight and sunshine, afternoon light trickling through the curtain of Lunya's hair, courage made itself known in his heartbeat. More careful than he truly knew how to be, he lifted his other hand to Lunya's cheek, wiping away a glistening tear, and pulled her back down towards him to kiss her, reveling in the small gasp against his mouth and the sweet taste of oranges and chocolate.

_"FINALLY,"_ someone wailed.

At the muffled proclamation, they both sat up, bumping their foreheads together at the fast motion. With faces pressed against the glass of the backyard door and the windows overlooking the porch, the others glowered down at a sheepish Sati who at least had the sense to cover her mouth in shame. 

_"Leave them alone, morons,"_ they heard Hanami snarl followed by an affirmative grunt that could only be Zaya's, and there was a surge of wild, uncontrollably happy laughter as their audience scattered in a frantic scramble, chased by five fulms and two to three inches of protective lizards.

Lunya winced, rubbing her head before G'raha took their fingers and laced them together, pressing his forehead back to hers gently this time.

His smile was shy. Not so hopeful as it was overjoyed. "If you really want me, then you have me."

In the face of such tenderness, Lunya melted, sinking against him. "I know what I said, and I know I'm very forceful and maybe I—maybe I pressured you, or something. But if having a girlfriend—" and they both blushed deeper at the word, though not enough to tear their eyes away from each other, "—if having a girlfriend like me—someone who's this flawed, who's too outspoken and kind of arrogant, would disrupt your plans, if you think I'll be a burden in the long run while you're miles away—"

"I don't want a pretty, perfect small town romance perfectly packaged in a box with no troubles," G'raha repeated as he branded a searing kiss to the palm of her hand. "I just want you."

_Gods_ , she mouthed weakly, and he stared, fixated, at the only fane he ever wanted to give offerings to. "Well, if you're my boyfriend now, would it be wrong to ask for another kiss?"

"They're watching again," he breathed, the figures in the windows clear enough from the corner of his eye. Trepidation trembled on his lower lip when she smiled, leaning toward him.

"Let them," she whispered, eyes glittering and her smile more radiant than he'd ever seen it before she kissed him this time, her mouth warm and soft against his as she pulled him in closer and deeper than before.

The sun was beginning to set when they piled what remained of the boxes of baked goods into the back of the car. Krile took her place in the passenger seat, sunglasses down and Moogle maps open as she talked about their route home with Rjoli and Reese, the latter visibly trying not to tear up as she bade farewell to Eureka, who slobbered all over her face and attempted to bark her ears out. The others stood on the front porch, talking to Galuf and saying their final goodbyes. Little Munehise presented the old man with a bouquet of flowers (clearly arranged by A'dewah) that had them all cooing. 

And on the far side of the grand driveway, G'raha kneeled to give his girlfriend (his girlfriend!!!) one last farewell before they were separated for four months. 

"Until winter," he promised, kissing her brow. "We're for sure going to drag Ejika down to meet everyone—he's so easy to rile up, you'll love him." She laughed against him. 

"Until winter," she echoed, and kissed him one last time. "And not as much as you, of course."

Eureka whimpered as Reese and Rjoli went back to stand with everyone else. As Galuf got in the driver's seat and G'raha settled in the back, he took the time to commit to detail the faces of each new friend he'd made over the summer. The little shops on the main street and the people within them felt more like home and family to him than his old hometown used to, and as his gaze finally settled back on Lunya, perched on Zaya's shoulders and dazzling as she beamed at him, he thought he might be able to suffer through an internship under Sjanna Eldfalk for a bit if he could stay here longer.

As they waved goodbye until both parties were naught but small dots in the distance, the summer warmth by their hearts never quite left them thereafter.

* * *

**lunya wants fuit gummy** @ladyluluck · 2m  
until next time!

33 Retweets 15 Quote Tweets 124 Likes


	16. it's a hard bark life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 15: ache
> 
> lunya has a habit of picking up strays.

"Tell me this is one of your little jokes," Hanami said flatly, watching as the smallest member of their shopping party wandered over across the parking lot, a ridiculous amount of fabric bolts in one arm (the telltale sign that the woman below the pile was, in fact, Lunya) and in the other a brand new and _occupied_ carrier she most certainly did not have with her when they left Gannet Bay that morning. Behind the Lalafell and carrying even more purchases that Hanami was fairly sure weren't necessary, Zaya shook their head, snow shaking free from their hat—their designer was very much serious about her latest conquest. 

Hanami traded looks with Reese.

What was likely the soon-to-be fifth tenant of the suite above Atelier Lunya whimpered when they both crouched to examine it inside the carrier, bundled in a fleece blanket. It was a shiba— _cute_ , Hanami would be inclined to say if she didn't have a reputation to maintain, while Reese made a tiny, "aww". Shaking terribly (more likely because of the cold), underweight, absolutely filthy (and she couldn't begin to imagine how there wasn't a smudge of dirt on either Lunya or Zaya's outfits), and a dullness in its eyes that suggested this was purely a dog of the street and not some family's runaway pet. Nothing that couldn't be fixed up, and it'd be simple enough to see if it was microchipped, but—

"Aren't they just the sweetest thing you've ever seen?" Lunya cooed as she crawled into the backseat, setting the carrier down beside her while Zaya settled all their bags in the back.

"You said that about the last three," Hanami pointed out, flipping Sid's keys in hand as she slipped in the driver's seat and turned the heater back on. She liked dogs too, though she wasn't crazy about them like Lunya and much more restrained in affection for them, having grown up around working ones out in farm country. Lunya, on the other hand, was more inclined towards lap dogs that were nearly as big as she was, especially when they were open to cuddles. "Do not get attached to this one _before_ we see if there is an owner."

Reese turned around in the passenger's seat once she'd bucked up, and in the rearview mirror Hanami watched as Lunya's face lit up when handed a palm full of candy. 

"It'll be hard to take care of four dogs," the Elezen said softly, "And I know you'll get attached so I won't tell you to foster or give them up, but wouldn't it've been easier to just call the city's shelter?"

Lunya shook her head vehemently, a whirl of snow and coral. "Older dogs don't get adopted and I just… feel bad for them, y'know? Sorry—" she shifted around after Reese's quiet _please stop swinging your legs, you're kicking the back of my seat_ , "—I dunno, it just feels wrong to _leave_ them out there. Sleeping on the streets sucks, especially in winter."

Well, Hanami wasn't going to try arguing after _that_ admission, not after Reese's face visibly fell.

When Zaya took up a seat on the other side of Lunya's new friend, they reached over and ruffled her hair, earmuffs and all, earning a wail of protest before an anxious cry cut her off. The ride back to Gannet Bay was quieter than their drive out of it after that, the radio silenced so Lunya could soothe the dog, and instead of heading back downtown like they were _supposed_ to, Hanami veered them towards the vet. Sidurgu could last another hour or two without his car.

"I'm starting to think she has a habit of picking up strays," Reese murmured as they watched Lunya and Zaya disappear into the vet clinic, holding the carrier between them with an almost skip to the Lalafell's step.

"Just starting?" Hanami snorted, fiddling with the radio while they waited. With a heavy sigh she offered a prayer to some god—the Twelve or the kami, it mattered not—that the dog wasn't microchipped and no owners were searching for it. Ultimately, as long as it kept Lunya happy, she could deal with their friend's boundless compassion towards canines. "She must have picked it up from Zaya."

* * *

Months later, Lunya's dogs gallivanted around their feet as they set up dinner, the newest member to the pack much rounder and livelier since they'd first found him in winter. Four dogs was still a ridiculous number, but if there was anyone in town who could pull it off it was going to be Lunya. 

Her newest problem, apparently, involved Krile's guest for summer vacation and his choice in footwear. Hanami didn't see what the matter was; they were practical and looked comfortable enough, though Lunya regularly insisted that comfort and aesthetic were not mutually exclusive. Sure, neon laces wouldn't be her first choice either, but sometimes you had to make do with what you had—

"You are never wearing those again," Lunya swore over her lemonade. "I'll burn them."

At G'raha's helpless expression, Krile snickered and handed him another kabob. "Buying him new ones was worth it, it was a gift for me too!"

"You never complained about them while I was wearing them!" he protested, but when he looked back at Lunya he didn't look particularly upset. In fact—

Hanami sighed, cracking the stiffness from her shoulders as she rolled them, the sound like a thunderclap. Puppy dog eyes, wide and shining and pleading. Hardly two days and already infatuated, the both of them, despite Lunya insulting him right out the gate and G'raha making a horrible first impression via bad shoes. What a pair. This summer was going to be a terribly long one even _without_ the question of the rest of her friends' romantic pursuits. 

"If you're gonna drag me for my wardrobe you'll have to help me fix it."

"I _guess_ I can take you under my wing…"

"Does he count as one of her strays?" Reese wondered, just loud enough that only Hanami could hear, and she could only shrug, taking a longer, tired swig of her drink.


	17. unmend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 16: lucubration
> 
> it’s too bad therapy doesn’t exist in eorzea.
> 
> [content warning: torture mention, self-harm, injury]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my ocs: lunya | theo | majj
> 
> tumblr friends:  
> a'dewah, duscha: @fistsoflightning  
> hanami: @to-the-voiceless  
> reese: @winduphaurchefant  
> rjoli: @verbroil

The first time someone suggests that she learn how to heal, Lunya nearly throws up.

It's not like they're short on healers, not between Theo and A'dewah and Reese and Rjoli and, most recently, Duscha. Each of them is proficient enough with their magic that she initially doesn't see a reason why they'd ask for another, and she knows for a fact that the two Hrothgar, who both use some kind of arcanima like she does, have something bigger than geometries up their sleeves.

But in the aftermath of the raid on the Waking Sands, with bodies that would get no wakes, no funerals, no true time to mourn, it makes sense. One extra healer could turn the tide in a battle. Maybe one extra healer could have saved more of the Scions. So no matter how queasy the idea of it makes her, she submits to the others' request (not a demand, never insistent, which is what makes it all more worse) and opens a fresh page in her grimoire and readies her ink.

What she hasn't told the others yet is she's already capable of healing. Kind of. Or at least, she used to be. 

As much as she hates thinking about it, she doesn't have the luxury of pretending that her years in Ul'dah never happened. It is a debt she needs to repay, a blemish on her face she'll never be rid of, and Minfilia and her inner circle knew this when they recruited her into their fold. She is the Scourge of the Ala Mhigan refugees, the right hand witch to Susuna Suna, a pharmacist that kidnapped the vulnerable and subjected them to horrors within her estate, all at the hand of a girl once called Yeyema Yema whose arcanima poisoned them from the inside out, who fouled their lungs and atrophies their limbs all for the sake of Susuna's experiments. She is a monster and she should've been put down long ago.

(The thought that she was only a child when Susuna tore her off the street and made her into a weapon has never crossed her mind. Children tend to not recognize injustice when it is all they know. All she thinks of is how weak she was and how weak she is now, to be unable to face her past head-on, to be unable to properly make amends.)

Physick isn't quite the same as the cures wielded by conjurers, but A'dewah is patient (if not extremely skittish) and Duscha is willing to further his own repertoire as a means to increase Lunya's own. When she fumbles one time too many on snapping close a scrape on Theo's knee, earning a sharp hiss from the Elezen that surprises all of them (because while Physick actively reconstructs cells, it's not supposed to _hurt)_ they turn outside what remains of the Scions and reach out to the Arcanists' Guild.

Alka Zolka almost fails to recognize her when they meet again, many long years after their first classes together at Mealvaan's Gate as children, which Lunya supposes is a good thing. He hesitates on her chosen name, fumbles once or twice but never in front of the other adventurers, and he swears to not tell her family that she's alive, which is more than she can ask from him in the end. 

_Yeyema_ , a name given to a little girl expected to bring light to the world, is barely hers anymore. The Twelve know she doesn't deserve it, not when all she knows is to ruin, not while she wears every cloak like a funeral shroud and shambles from day to day like a mourner grieving the death of the teenager she used to be.

"Her magic is naturally strong," Duscha muses to A'dewah once as they flitter over Alka's tablets by the lakeside during one of their lessons. Majj repeats his words in a murmur so low that none but she can hear as she pinches together the cut on his arm with a hesitant flutter of butterfly scales, his tail sweeping in a thoughtful loop over the stones as he flicks his ear so neither of the healers can see he's eavesdropping. He can't keep a grimace off his face and she's so impossibly sorry but when she's done he holds her hand, still whispering to her the words her mentors won't—can't?—say to her face. "But there is something holding her back from healing. It bars her from her true potential."

"I—" A'dewah hesitates, stammering. "I—I know that, er, in cases of _trauma_ —"

And Lunya grips Majj's hand tighter, urging him to stop talking. She doesn't want to hear anymore. She doesn't want the people she barely desires to call _friends_ understanding just who she is and what she has done.

 _It's none of their business anyway,_ she tells herself, swiping away the blood on her lip when she bites it too hard, her carbuncle squeaking softly in alarm at the scent. The lashes on her back sing with a phantom agony but in the end they are just that: a phantom. She is alive and she is _fine_ , isn't that enough? _I didn't even want to heal_.

She's always been a liar and a fraud and a fake, so there's no sense in stopping now. If she keeps repeating it to herself, it'll be true.

But the same pride that keeps her from healing properly is what keeps her going. She burns through candles faster than she can replenish them, her nights seized by an almost fanatic, frantic storm of studying, her mornings plagued with an all-consuming need to do _better_. Like a woman possessed she tears through all of the contacts Alka and Momodi and Baderon can give her, she reads and rereads all the tomes she can track down and consume, and it is never enough to fix herself. She is never enough.

Just because she was made to hurt others doesn't mean she really wants to.

There is no shortage on injuries to heal when you're an adventurer and have companions who walk toward danger instead of away from it, but past midnight when she should be in bed and all the others are slumbering, crowded in the one spare room allotted to them in Camp Dragonhead, she considers the scar on her thigh, tracing the faded lines of an impulsive geometry carved by her own hand. It was an act of desperation when she first made it, when she needed to make sure she and Reese and the others would not die at the claws of the Lord of the Inferno. 

She considers the scar and takes her dagger—kept sharpened since the disaster with Ifrit, just in case.

And as she expects, what hurts more are not the cuts she makes to her hand but the aether she tries to push into it after. Clutching her wrist with frustrated tears in her eyes, clenching the sound into her sleeve, she sears the memory of how agonizing it is to receive her magic to her mind and she knows what it means.

Her magic is ruinous and there lies a calamity beneath her skin. It always has been, there always will be. She knows the root is in her mind. She knows there is no poultice or cure or galvanizing spell for this. And she knows she can't ever tell anyone else about how deep it goes.

She doesn't think any of them will confront her on it—on how awful her healing is. All of the adventurers (sans Hanami, maybe) are much kinder than she ever has or ever will be. In an emergency, maybe, she could cover for cases where an excess of pain wouldn't make things worse, because she's certain the one reason they're still trying to teach her is because of how potent her magic is. It'd be a waste of time otherwise, and it's hard for her to fathom a genuine desire to for her improvement when she's spent so long being distant and scathing. Until a time like that comes, if the others avoid her healing unless they absolutely cannot, she won't blame them. That is until—

"Lunya, take care of her!" 

It is a stupid, pointlessly irrational thing, for the bile and panic to rise in her throat when she channels healing magic in her hands, to tremble so erratically as she calls up the geometries of Lustrate for the first time at this extent. What should be purified aether fanning neatly from the distance between her pointer finger and thumb rattles out into the wound that gashes down Reese's side, staining the snow beneath them crimson red.

 _"These 'ands could 'old the great bloody world, they could!_ her grandpa once marveled when she was half as tall and could still fit in the palm of his own hand. _An' I know yer certain to do incredible things with 'em, little Yeyema._

If only her grandpa was right. If only these shaking hands of hers were worthy of such potential.

The others have rushed ahead already, chasing down their quarry in a desperate flurry of weapons and boot prints in the frost. Maybe it was a dumb idea to send such a small party of them out to hunt in Coerthas, where dragons lurk in every shadow and hunger for the blood of men. Splitting up isn't optimal and _certainly_ not while both of their healers are being left behind but neither is allowing their mark a chance to recover and flee back into the peaks when it's been eating travelers off the road. 

If it was so easy for them to leave her with Reese, they must trust her. And they shouldn't, but she's never been one to leave a debt unpaid, so she needs to do this. She _needs_ to do this _she needs to do this SHE NEEDS TO DO THIS SHE NEEDS TO DO THIS SHE NEEDS—_

"Steady," Reese whispers, still gentle and kind against the pain. Though she boasts one of the best levels of pain tolerance among them she still shrieked as the aevis clawed her side. And now, as Lunya forces her injury shut, Reese weeps, the sun placed at her side and burning her alive. When Lunya finishes, there's no trace of a wound there but the jagged tear in the conjurer's winter coat, but she knows she can mend that much without any pain.

And though it shouldn't be this way—the healer being comforted by her patient, the patient being in more pain from her ministrations than by the initial wound, a half-decade come and gone and the sins of the world that should have protected her still branded across her skin, to not trust herself enough to call these people her friends—Reese still holds Lunya when she begins to cry, overwhelmed by her inability to grow past everything that made her this way.


	18. though my soul may set in darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 17: fade
> 
> i have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.

Coming back to the Tempest, sinking her feet against the slopes of oceanic stone and inhaling the deep sea mist, saturated in salt and in pitch, she feels at home.

Her parents have always said she was born of the sea and the stars. They are children of the waves and it is back to the brine they will return when they die, to become foam beneath the bewitching pull of the moon, but her soul is one of refulgent and primordial light just as the north star that guides sailors back to shore. 

The guillotine across her back doesn't suit her. It's a weapon that resonates more with her companions, but she carries it with the dignity they've fostered within her, a fire they've tended and stoked until it burns with the strength of the sun. It does not weigh upon her miniature form, threatening to drown her in the shadows as it once had before, back when she first plucked the crystal at her waist from the seabed in desperation and in hopelessness. 

When she reaches the cliffside, when only the depths stretch out ahead of her, and past that the horizon drowned out by millions of miniature stars, windows that glow but are empty yet once full of life and of noise, she takes the sword from her back. Its blade pulses soothingly in the sweeping shadows of the sea and in the palm of her hand, and when she thrusts it through the stone it is like piercing the morning to give the stars room to breathe. 

"Come on, then," she says, her smile a shot of resplendent light in the comforting abyss, the brilliant, shimmering tail of a comet across the curtain of night. The hand she reaches to bridge the gap between the stars and the dark is open. Beckoning. Accepting. "Do your worst to my heart." 

_You don't need me anymore,_ the simulacrum thinks as it forms beside her, its paws sinking in her shadow and in the storm of her heart that has come to a gentle still, an ocean made peaceful beneath the radiant shine of an aetheryte earring and a crystalline wedding ring, a tumultuous river finally brought to rest after it meets the sea and comes home, once the stars find their place in the night and know they shine brightest when shrouded in dark. It is a twisted, grotesque form: pitch black waves for fur, rippling unsettling with a fathomless depth, crystal eyes with their brilliant facets clearer than a call to the sea; it is one of the direwolves of her mother's tales, a thing with many, many teeth and sharpened fangs bared to protect, to howl, but she does not look on it with fear any longer. 

_I need you more than you know,_ says her twilight eyes, still vivid and brilliantly violet after all she has seen and said and done, unable to fade as they sparkle with the firmament made manifest, _I love you more than I can say._

And when the shadow leans forward, drawn to her gravity, to the harmonious pull and of the universe made incarnate, Lunya takes her darkness and gives it a name, finally allowing it a place by her heart. 

* * *

From the blackest night shines the brightest stars, and an echo in your soul rings clear...

Action learned: Abyssal Depths.

_Conjures Reflection, the manifestation of Lunya's inner beast, to fight alongside her. When summoned it releases a bone-chilling wail, like an agonized, discordant chorus of crying children—but once its timer ends, it silently slips back into her shadow with a strange sense of gentleness._


	19. struck from a great height

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 18: panglossian
> 
> if you looked up the definition of "normal childhood" none of them would be the example image.

"She is a bit much," Sirius confesses one morning over the tea he pours for Lunya out in the garden. It's a sweet thing from Doma, smelling of peaches and apples when she takes a sip. The Lavender Beds are in full bloom at this time of the year, a colourful collage of flowers everywhere they look, and they're almost so abundant that they lose track of the little girl skipping this way and that through the yard, singing in that little birdsong voice of hers.

Lunya scrutinizes his face over her cup. "Is she?" she asks, though he knows better than to actually answer while she has that cloying smile on her lips that says she's going to psychoanalyze whatever he says next. "She reminds me of Zaya sometimes."

_She_ being the Miqo'te kitten scampering around, the one with rosey hair and an endlessly sunny disposition that's gotten the whole Lavender Beds wrapped around her little finger, a bundle of joy and reckless, childish impulse. Linnet beams as she comes back into view from behind one of the many hydrangea bushes, leaves in her hair and no shortage of dirt on her dress, which has Sirius grimacing while Lunya laughs, giving her a little wave before she tumbles back into her miniature solo-adventure.

"We were _not_ like that at her age."

"And thank the Twelve she's not like us." Lunya shakes her head. "Even though her circumstances weren't great either—"

"That's the _point_." Sirius exhales sharply as he pulls out the chair across from her and clambers onto it, a privilege afforded to someone who was their employer's childhood friend before they became their retainer. "I'm worried that she's hiding any bad feelings from us—you can't just escape a Garlean castrum without your parents and grow up an orphan and _not_ get any trauma after. Is she holding back or does she not realize? Look at us, we're both fu—"

Lunya half-lunges over the table and stuffs a cookie in his mouth.

"We're both dealing with unresolved issues," she finishes sweetly with a bat of her eyelashes, ignoring Sirius' grumble of _I hate sugar cookies and you know this why am I letting you pay me to be your damn servant and why didn't I walk away when I first saw you on Pearl Lane?_ "Neither of us have any right to try prying that kinda thing out of her, so for now we just have to make sure she grows up better than we did."

There's a very loud _KWARK!_ of alarm that has them both shooting up in their seats just in time to watch as Linnet gets tossed into a bush while Lunya's chocobo huffs in discontent at her. When the little girl recovers and simply turns to run after Lunya's pack of dogs with a boundless sort of energy that neither of them got to use when they were her age, her guardians simply sigh.

"...Maybe I'll get Hanami to introduce her to Mune and Rielle," Lunya decides, cringing beneath the well-deserved frustration of her featheriest companion before Ube turns to stalk back into their stable. "Linnet could use friends her own age."


	20. when i see your light shine, i know i'm home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 19: where the heart is
> 
> if i were to tell you that this isn’t the end—that we will meet again—would you believe me?
> 
> [5.3 spoilers and character death]

The stars are falling above Amaurot when Asteria finds Endymion curled up beneath the bower of the jacaranda trees. What is left of them, at least, in the dying embers of the End, while all the world is still falling apart to a solar flare and a rumble beneath their feet. She lifts up the hem of her robes to clamber over a collapsed streetlight and scrambles across the park, past the mournful murmur of her people as they tremble in the shadows, waiting for more calamities to stumble into the street and swallow them whole.

"Hello, starlight," Endymion murmurs when she leans over him. His face is bare, and he is still wearing that incurably smug smile he had when she saw him last and every time before that, the one that foolishly made her fall for him faster than the heavens had broken above the city. Ichor soaks his braids an even deeper crimson than normal, a red that stains her hands as she runs her fingers over his brow and wants to scream. "Such an honor it is, to be blessed with such a beautiful sight before I die—"

 _"Stupid."_ The word flushes between Asteria's lips in a hiss, a sizzling thing of heat and of grief. Endymion laughs, low and rich and effortless, a sound that would normally reverb with wanting and adoration in her belly but now just pangs hopelessly against her heart. She is not good enough of a mage to save him. Azem is, but she knows not where her mentor is and she knows calling any other will be for nothing, not when there are hundreds more beneath the rubble. Amaurot has never been about the individual. But still she says, "You won't—"

Gentle fingers, cold and fading fast, wrap around her wrist and silence her. "I will, my dearest. I knew it was foolish, running out in search for you, but more so than that I knew I could not bear it if you met a tragic end."

"You are no hero, my love," she chokes out, lacing her fingers through his with heartache. "This perfect city of ours has never needed such things—" Before now. In her heart, she knows what will come from the ashes of their creations. She has heard both Hades' and Venat's petitions to Azem. "—but I need _you_."

Endymion chuckles. Even in the throes of death he shines, lambent as the day they first met, the intersection of two brilliant, nascent stars. "Perhaps another time, then." When his head tilts, she catches the splintered gleam of his shattered earring, its crack a twin to the one her own has suffered. A cruel reminder of their synchrony in all times but now. "I have always been yours, fear not."

"Where is your arrogance now?" Asteria asks him, trembling. "If you are mine, then why must you leave me?"

He shakes his head.

"Do not bind yourself to me; I'll still be with you in your heart. I have always looked to the future and I have always seen you there." And he has. The candles they've burned are immeasurable, as are the nights they've lost in pursuit of the knowledge he desired, knowledge that would bear hope for all the years to come and for all that he held dear. "You do not deserve to be bound to this city that stifles your light and tethers you to the shore."

"I do not claim to love this city, but _you_ are in it." She would fight the call of the open roads for him a thousand times over and _has_. 

"And what a joy it has been." The hand he reaches up to touch her face, to trace the golden constellations on her skin is kind. Loving. "To sing your song. To stand within this radiance of yours. To share finite moments in your infinities, Asteria, my moon and my stars."

"Endymion." She's starting to break and they both know it. No—she was already broken, a star sundered and collapsed when she found him lying here. _"Please."_

"I cannot presume to be arrogant in this moment. Not when it has been hubris enough to have claimed so much of your time, to fathom myself worthy of your presence and love." 

She wants to tear apart the seams of this world of theirs. She wants to break it to pieces and crush the stars beneath her heel because what is the point of it all if she cannot have him? He is more than worthy of her and even if he wasn't she wouldn't care. 

Endymion cups her face one last time and whispers, "If I were to tell you—"

"—we will meet again—" _Lamitt reassures Ardbert and his scream is one of raw heartbreak as he swings his axe to her neck, the last of their friends to cross the divide, and in their wake twelve suns and twelve moons echo their laments and their love._

 _G'raha smiles when Lunya kisses him, the crystal cold beneath her hands as she cups his face and weeps, their wedding bands glimmering with a promise they must break in this world._ "—would you believe me?"

"When we meet again," Asteria says, gripping his hands with the force of a thousand thousand tempests, a solar storm in her golden eyes, "I will be stronger. You will never get away from me again, do you understand?" Because this is the strength of their bond, she has to believe it so. If this universe will not let her keep him then she'll fight the next one and every one after that to see him again. She will bend the stars to her will and force fate to give him back.

He runs his thumb through the tears that slip past her mask, and in frustration she tears the damned construct away and tosses it aside, leaving it lost amidst the shell of the broken city and her wretched heart. "I am counting on it. When we next meet, promise me you'll take me on an adventure. A journey. The stars above us and the eternal wind at our backs."

"Of course." She tries her best to smile for him one more time, to leave him with the full measure of her love for him. "And I will love you just as much."

"Fare you well, my love," are Endymion's final words, violet eyes shining with celestial brilliance even in his final moments, eyes that have only ever been for her and eyes that have loved all of her despite her flaws and faults. "And let me find you again."

When his lifelight stutters out, she heaves an aching, tremulous sob. The tears flow freely now without her mask and without his pervasive and unyielding sunshine, wracking her with a nauseous aching that she thinks might never leave her bones for whatever remains of her days.

"Sleep well, my inspiration," she says with a stuttering breath, drawing the curtain over twilight one final time as she closes his eyes. "Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

And in the theatre of what is left of Amaurot, she steps to the wings and waits to see what part Azem would have them both play upon its final stage, Endymion's promise entwined to the very core of her soul. 

* * *

The stars are still, silent in their vigil above Mor Dhona when Lunya finds G'raha curled up beneath the bower of the crystal trees, the ones on the rooftop gardens above the Rising Stones. Her nightgown catches moonlight as she approaches him, knowing her expression is fond and soft even when a reprimand leaves her mouth as soon as he looks up at her. 

"I don't recall you getting cleared from the sickbay just yet."

"Ah, you know me," G'raha says with a quirk of his lip. "I'm partial to a little mischief and restlessness here and there." Though she makes a move to join him beneath the tree, as soon as she tries to sit down he wraps his tail around her leg and pulls her onto his lap. She tumbles there with an amused huff and not much in the way of protest, settling neatly against the curve of his chest.

Lunya hums with earnest joy as he presses a long, warm kiss to her neck. Her earring is absent, carefully tucked away in the bedside drawer of her room for the night, but the spot it normally hangs still thrums with the mark of his aether. "Someone will mistake you for a Keeper if you keep this up."

"How terrible," G'raha snickers. "The stars and the moon are just too irresistible even for myself, I'm afraid to say." He lets her shift in her seat upon his lap so they can see each others' faces in the thin moonlight. "And what of you, Lady Warrior? I was under the impression that you were _also_ confined to a bed after expending much mana against Elidibus."

There's just a faint hint of scolding in there, a sheepish kind that knows he has no room to be chiding her but still wants to. Without fully realizing it, Lunya bares her teeth, a silent snarl hanging in the tenseness of her jaw. 

"He was _killing_ you," she reminds him, her voice thin and dangerous. "I was terribly mad." That was putting it politely—the others hadn't taken as kindly to the decisive battle on top the Crystal Tower either, and at their best were livid but at their worst inconsolable, and with the understanding that each damned summon Elidibus was pulling off with the Tower was taking a toll on the Exarch rather than the summoner, Lunya had stood transformed by her outrage, a beastial, shrieking thing with a fight that did not quite leave her body even after the final unsundered Ascian was sealed within the Tower. 

It was near impossible to fully drain her of her aether—not when she had an unnatural abundance of it from unconsciously absorbing it from around her. But in her desperation to finish the Warrior off before the damage it did became irreversible it nearly happened, and it would have been for nothing too, because despite their best efforts the shell of a crystalline man keeps vigil over his city across the rift, a manasilver engagement ring on his left hand. 

G'raha is quiet. "I am curious about the revelations from those events," he says finally, moving away from those thoughts. "Hanami was once a member of the Convocation of Amaurot. Zaya was once a student of Emet-Selch. And you and I—"

"I don't care who or what we were, really," Lunya interrupts with a frown, though there's no anger behind it but a simple neutrality. "I'm Lunya and Yeyema, daughter of Toru and Lilina. I am your wife—" and they both smile as G'raha takes her left hand and kisses the crystal band there. "—I'm a Warrior of Light and Darkness and a Scion of the Seventh Dawn. It took me years to come to terms with who I am and I really don't need another identity crisis on my hands. But… if there was a past me who loved a past you, if my soul has always known yours, if the one guarantee in all the lives to come is you… then maybe it's not such a bad thing."

She wonders how long Asteria and Endymion were looking for each other, or if any of their shards have found each other again too, and how many lifetimes and years it must have taken. She wonders if she's capable of loving G'raha as fiercely as Asteria loved Endymion, to be reborn with her most beloved's eyes and to master a magic that would have saved him in a time long past, and decides that she _knows_ she is. 

G'raha smiles warmly at her, enchanted and grateful, his ruby eyes half-moons as his tail flicks over her exposed calf with her nightgown pushed up.. "It's awfully romantic, isn't it?" he says. "There are books on _soulmates_ in Sharlayan, though the study of them is not popular."

"Soulmates," she echoes, testing the word on her tongue. It's almost ambrosial when she says it and decides that she likes it. "Hey, Raha, when Krile gives you the clear would you like to go on a journey with me?"

The way his face lights up is like the sun rising over the Rhotano, drowning her in warmth and glory. "Of course! There is nothing else I'd rather do and you know this. But—" His brow wrinkles in thought. "—do you not want to go home first?"

"Home is wherever you are," she tells him and relishes the tender _oh_ that makes a home in his slackened jaw. "And we'll go everywhere—to La Noscea, to the Lavender Beds, to the Quicksand. There's so much and more I want you to see. There's so many people who want to see _you_."

G'raha's face splits with a grin that he quickly buries in her hair, crushing her to his chest. She laughs, the sound softened by the gentle, eternal wind that sweeps through the rooftops and steals their secrets away and out into the night.

"Thank you for letting me find you, my inspiration."

"And thank you for seeking me."


	21. pick me from the dark and pull me from the grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 20: enmity (extra credit)
> 
> this is the story of how g’raha tia died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr friends  
> a'dewah, syhrwyda, zaya: @fistsoflightning  
> hanami: @to-the-voiceless  
> reese: @winduphaurchefant  
> rjoli: @verbroil

"Oi, your princeliness! Wake up and smell the saltpeter!"

G'raha spluttered as the world swung back into view through his now soaked hair. A'dewah stammered something like _t-that is not how you treat a patient_ and _Your Highness, don't move!_ but Seven simply dropped his bucket (now empty of seawater) back on the floor with a loud _thunk_ and a satisfied, swiping clap of his hands _._ The boom of cannons firing and the ocean raging against the ship rumbled around them, shaking the floor beneath his back. 

"S'ven," G'raha croaked, pushing himself up as best as he could as the Lalafell turned on his heel and stomped back to the cannons. "A'dewah? What—"

"You've really done it now, kid!" Seven barked over his shoulder. He cursed as the ship swayed, throwing off his aim and forcing him to flag the rest of the gunner team over to him. "The chief thinks you keeled over! She's gonna give ya _hell_ if she doesn't tear herself apart first!"

His bewilderment must have been obvious, because A'dewah crouched low, lamplight dancing across his face and across his fists, clenched in anxiety as tight as the twist of his tail. "The other captain got you," he said gravely, voice raised higher than he'd normally dare so G'raha could hear him over the skirmishing above. "I—we were certain you were dead. Reese and Hanami were supposed to engage him first, b-but… he turned suddenly and shot you. You dropped instantly and you— you weren't _breathing,_ G'raha. If the others didn't drag you back, t-then—"

A burst of pain flared in G'raha's chest as he instinctively palmed at the bandaged wound there. There were flashes of fire and darkness in his mind's eye now, and the memory of a bolt of sundered night piercing through him had him reeling.

"I really did almost die," he said numbly. Danger was part and parcel of life on the seas—he knew this from the moment he'd first been offered to join the _Invicta_ as a proper member of the crew rather than a royal stowaway (and he was going to get them to drop the titles _eventually_ ). But none of their challenges or voyages this far had ever brought him this close to the brink. "The chief m—are the others alright?" 

A'dewah didn't respond, because his grimace and the rumble of a growing storm overhead were answer enough. Whoever brought G'raha in had been thoughtful enough to pick up his staff too, so he snagged it as he stood up and swayed on the spot, knees weak beneath him. 

"They need all the help they can get," he told the healer as A'dewah started to protest. "Has the corvus been dropped?"

"Any second now!" Seven cut in with a holler. "Kotone, hoist that one up—"

"But we don't know _what_ Elidibus did to you, G'raha, I don't even know if my healing _worked_." Despite his evident frustration, A'dewah pressed a potion to his hands anyway. "You can't go out just yet—and—oh, I shouldn't say, I… I—ugh, Lunya will not want you to see her as she is now!"

Well, that was a surprise. It wasn't like he'd never seen her fight before—back during their very first meeting she nearly cleaved his head clean off and that was _before_ she threatened to trounce him right off the deck. "What would—why wouldn't she?" 

"We were certain you were _dead_ ," A'dewah repeated, looking tired and very small in his rain-drenched tunic. "She—Lunya—we know that you two are—that—oh, hells, you'll see when you get up there, I know you won't stay so go before I call Rjoli down to force you to."

G'raha didn't need to be told twice.

"SAINTS!" someone roared above the tempest right as he emerged on deck. He ducked behind the barrels at the rail as Zaya flipped off the head of one of the _Convocation_ 's crew, electricity crackling across their scales and a horrible tingle in the air. He felt rather than saw the raw arc of lightning that burst from the other ship and wrinkled his nose as the smell of ozone and burning flesh rolled across both decks, but as soon as the light faded he was out from his cover. As the _Invicta_ swerved parallel against its prey, down came the corvus, which crashed through one of the enemy sailors and anchored the two ships together as it pierced through the other deck. G'raha surged across the ramp as it fell, shoving whoever was unfortunate enough to try and meet him there into the briny sea. The _Convocation_ 's hull was littered with cracks from boarding axes and charred blisters of Sharlayan fire, but he didn't need to look back to know that their own ship would look the same.

Though the upheaval on the enemy deck, he caught a flash of white and crimson in the eye of the storm as Lunya whirled into the fray, her trenchant axe crashing through the board where her opponent once stood. She ripped it from the wood and lunged again, chasing Eldibus' steps in a deadly, unyielding dance. Miasma trickled at the enemy captain's fingertips but for each step he took back, the others were there, refusing to yield him enough time to cast that damned spell again. 

And Lunya was a burning star in the atmosphere of the _Convocation_ , wearing a murderous pall that was both ferocious and tranquil as she sunk her blade through every man that dared to cross her in her pursuit. It was a different sort of anger than what she'd shown G'raha before—unlike her mounting frustration with Thancred during their last visit to Minfilia's tavern or her irritation over their Au Ri crewmates tearing their cots with their horns one time too many. This was a raw, unrelenting fury, one that was completely consuming their smallest medic in its grasp. The roar Lunya made as she splintered through an incoming lance was earthshaking, foreign to the image of the _Invicta_ 's small, very much deadly but still _sweet_ healer. 

The others were doing their best to compensate, he realized, doing whatever they could to make sure Lunya didn't fight herself to her own death (and it was clear now that _this_ is what Seven meant, that Lunya's recklessness now bordered on suicidal). But they couldn't keep up with her forever; even now they were losing their footing as their magicked storm pelted down, and while individually they could work around their man-made conditions, coordinating was becoming a struggle. 

Lunya tore past Syhrwyda's fire and G'raha's heart almost stopped.

"Lunya!" Ice and lightning burst from his outstretched hand without him actively willing it to. It barreled over the medic's head, blasting the pistol from the hand of the man who tried to shoot her—the quartermaster. The white-haired man snarled at the interruption, but before he could scramble for his firearm Zaya was there, a bolt of cobalt in the squall.

At his cry of her name, the medic spun around. The dancing light in her eyes was wild and haunted, but as she found him standing just paces away the fight nearly drained from her in an instant.

"Ra—Your Highness? You're—" 

"About as alive as one can be after an attack like that." His exhale was stolen by the wind picking up around them as he pooled aether in his hand. Forming his sword was second nature by now, though he knew it didn't glow half as intensely as usual and he was sure Lunya would have words with him about coming back once this was over. "I can still fight."

"I thought—" Lunya stammered, her starspun hair slick against her cheeks as she looked over his whole face like she still couldn't believe he was really there, "—when you fell I—"

G'raha grimaced. "I know. You have my sincerest apologies for making you worry."

Remembering who she was and where they were, Lunya straightened up with a huff and swung her axe over her shoulder to take out the knee of a pirate who came too close. "I did no such thing, you ass. _Don't_ do it again."

"If you insist." He looked over the heads of the still struggling fighters. Now further away, the _Convocation_ 's captain and his quartermaster glared at him. He should've figured that he'd have a big target on his head as the runaway prince of Allag, but _most_ of the people who figured that out so far wanted to catch him alive. Unfortunately for these two, G'raha was very much enjoying his new lease on life and he had a very small and _very_ angry companion in it now that wasn't eager to let him go.

"You owe me a drink at the Respite for that heart attack," Lunya said tersely, but she took his hand and squeezed it tightly once before rejoining the rush. "There's no place for you on the seas if you're just gonna die in one hit."

G'raha's laugh didn't quite escape his chest, but he smirked as he raised his blade and followed. "After we finish with these scoundrels, of course. Be sure to leave the last dance for me."


	22. unsteady hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 21: foibles
> 
> old habits die hard or not at all.
> 
> [5.3 ending spoilers]

While he knew Ishgard was going to be cold—far colder than Sharlayan and her blanketing seas and gloomy, rainy winters because of the Holy See's frozen alpine landscape—G'raha honestly hadn't thought he would ever consider getting one of those legwarmer things for his _tail_. The chill of the Pillars as it was quietly blanketed beneath snow made a good cover for his nervous rubbing of his wrists, at least. Or it _would_ have been if he was being accompanied to the Last Vigil by anyone other than his wife, who was eyeing him with the countenance of a Sharlayan librarian who _knew_ his tomes were three weeks past overdue and was simply waiting for him to make a slip-up so she could pounce in with a late fee.

"Are you cold?" Lunya asked sweetly, peering up at him past the fleece trim of her hood, violet eyes bright and alert against the backdrop of snow. The boxes of fresh pastries she carried smelled tantalizing and were the only thing stopping him from taking her hand in his in an attempt to fight the urge to twitch—that and the scandalized looks they'd get from the nobles if he indulged himself too much in her affection. Even now they walked so close that it would only take a half-ilm reach to brush her hair behind a pointed ear. "Or is the trembling of your boots simply from your old age catching up?"

He rolled his eyes. "'Tis just pre-meeting nerves." When he sighed, his breath spread visible in the frostlight. "I'll be alright."

Edmont de Fortemps' memoir was an incredible, awe-inspiring read in the darkened midnights of the 8th Umbral Calamity, painting a map of the Warriors' deeds through Coerthas and beyond its frozen reach in the midst of the Dragonsong War. His own faded copy still sat in the Umbilicus of the First's Crystal Tower, well-worn and devotedly preserved. To meet the man who wrote it himself in the flesh—the very man who'd taken a band of exiled heroes into his home and hearth—stirred something in his old historian's heart and it was safe to say he'd been anticipating this meeting for weeks.

Except the _real_ problem was that G'raha knew the former count considered almost all of the Warriors like they were his own flesh and blood, including the indomitable Lunya Lanya, G'raha's _wife_ , who saved the life of the count's second son when it could have killed her to do so.

"You survived my _mom_." Lunya tossed her hair as he conceded that it was a good point—Lilina Lina was more scary than the inevitability of turning to crystal and being abducted by an Ascian combined and that was when she was in a good mood. "Lord Edmont's about as intimidating as a moogle in a sallet by comparison."

_...Didn't she fight one of those during her travels in Dravania?_

"I take it I shouldn't repeat that comparison to anyone else," G'raha muttered, nervously glancing at the tittering women standing around the Hoplon. 

"Maybe. If you're lucky, Emmanellain could get a laugh out of it."

Between his many thoughts—most of them bad—about the sheer number of stairs around the city and watching Lunya visibly fight the urge to open one of her boxes and pilfer her own treats before they could get to the manor (and he _did_ offer to carry them for her before they left, but she insisted he was just as weak to their sweet siren call as she was), he found they were no longer walking down the slope to the Vigil. Lunya set her parcels on the bench inside the gazebo she'd silently taken him to and turned with her hands on her hips.

"You're still doing it, Raha," she pointed out, amused instead of scolding. 

G'raha glanced down in time to see himself unconsciously rubbing his wrist again and he winced. "Um. I, er—"

" _Luckily for you_ —" she didn't hide the impish smile forming on her lips as she stepped towards him, a very endearing gleam in her eyes, "—you married one of the best healers on Hydaelyn. And I just so happen to have a cure for shaking hands."

Lunya was up to _something_ , though he didn't really know what. A little apprehensive he said, "Is that so? I'll have to credit this windfall to my Lady Luck. Would you care to share?"

"Here." She raised her small hands to him, palms facing upward, and he placed his hand on top of her own. Instead of feeling her magic surge between their palms after a few seconds like he thought he would, Lunya simply threaded her fingers through his, looking up at him with a bright, expectant smile.

Oh. 

OH. 

" _Oh_ ," G'raha managed to squeak feebly, feeling a spark fizzle through his spine and make his tail and ears stand on end with surprise. His inspiration was a ray of vibrant summer sun in the midst of the endless Coerthan winter, spreading heat all through him as her smile became a huge grin. 

If he had to retract one of his arms to hide his furiously blushing face in the crook of his elbow or sit down with his face in his hands for a few minutes more before they finally entered the Fortemps Manor, it'd be a secret between just the two of them in this private, warm corner of Ishgard.


	23. triple trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 22: argy-bargy
> 
> it's not really a triple miqo'te/lalafell date because lalai would sooner die than admit anything close to affection for hers.

_"So_ , _Raha_ ," Melkoko crooned, sirensong voice dripping with the same amount of honey she was pouring into her sweetheart(?)'s tea. H'mhasi didn't seem to notice because he was doing the second finest attempt to drown in a salad bowl that Lunya had ever seen in her twenty six summers. "You've known Lunya for how long?"

G'raha made a contemplative noise. "Ah, six years, give or take?" Technically. Telling Lalai and Zhai'a the truth of the whole matter was one thing—trying to explain the nature of the Shards to a simple waitress and a hardly-humble vagabond chef would earn them Words from the Scions. Many, many words. Possibly even a thinly veiled threat of maternal retribution, which was arguably worse than the divine type.

Drumming her fingertips against the rim of her plate, Melkoko _hrmm_ ed.

Sandwiched between her husband and orange-haired friend and the distinctly interrogation-tinged barrage of questions Melkoko was pelting G'raha with, Lunya was content to sit back and watch the budding chaos of introducing the new feline-shaped variables to her regular party of three Lalafellin girls. Lalai was doing a fine job orchestrating H'mhasi's soon-to-be suffocation by parsley through a riveting retelling of how Melkoko last showed up on the Sacrarium steps bemoaning her beau's inability to write her a simple letter. The priestess' own Miqo'te companion was doing a very poor job of not watching her intently as she carved through what was left of H'mhasi's self-esteem, so everything was going exactly how Lunya expected it to.

Except for this one little twist: G'raha was being _proper_. 

This admittingly wasn't a new concept: his older self _was_ the leader of the Crystarium and had managed a century without any major incidents to be recorded in the Cabinet's history books. But this was a _different_ proper than a diplomatic kind, and it wasn't the nervous politeness he wore when she threw him in the gauntlet of meeting her six or seven families one after the other either. This was a blatantly preening kind of proper and it wasn't _jarring_ as much as it was... just kind of strange. Especially when her friends were just being weirdos and bickering as they always did.

"I understand _completely_ , Miss Melko," G'raha said sympathetically, a hand over his heart.

 _Liar,_ Lunya mouthed, face turned so Melkoko couldn't see. He grinned impishly at her.

"Alright, what gives, Raha?" she got to hiss as Lalai cut in with a question for Melkoko about pigtails and soap. "Stop being so polite, it's _weird_."

Despite Lunya's clear dig at his manners, G'raha simply leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "You have three couples here. Two and a half, I suppose—" he added before Lunya could cut in as they both glanced at Zhai'a and Lalai, the former of which was doing his best to reach over Lalai's head and pry H'mhasi _out_ of the salad without touching a hair on the black mage's pretty head. "—with three Lalafellin women, three Miqo'te men. We have to prove our superiority, which _means_ I have to keep my cards close to my chest. Wait until the time is right."

There was a small, insignificant part of her that knew that this was a ridiculous thing to support because Lalai still had her hat up her rear and hadn't fully realized that Zhai'a even liked her _platonically_ yet, but the much larger part of her that really liked winning completely pointless competitions stood up and went _HELLS YES!_ So of course,being the stupidly indulgent and equally competitive person she was, she nodded in understanding.

"We have a very unfair advantage," she pointed out, tapping his thigh with the back of her left hand and definitely _not_ smiling. "Being married and perfect and all that."

G'raha gave her a Look, which was either the one that meant _gods, why are you so adorable_ or the one that said _gods, why are you so insufferable?_ "You have never played fair once in your life, imp."

"Yeah," Lunya sighed, though she gave him a mischievous wink that made his eyes wrinkle with affection. "You love me for it."

"Of course."

Without G'raha's patience to weather away at with an intrusive questionnaire, Melkoko turned back to H'mhasi, now successfully out of the salad and forced to confront whatever had him sulking into it to begin with. 

"—tribe letter of a man you've just met!" The culinarian probably would've started to knead his hands into the salad if it weren't for Lalai's judging stare, his orange eyes wide with an abject misery. "While your lover was away—"

" _What_ lover?" Melkoko sniffed, tossing her hair. "He's the _husband_ of my dear friend Lunya, who I must add has _always_ been there for me, unlike _someone else!"_

Lalai took a long, conspicuously noisy slurp of her juice, and Lunya smacked G'raha's arm when he whistled low and clear.

"I've been away for _many_ good reasons." There was a vein visible on H'mhasi's brow, which was very unfortunate to be witness to. No gods answered Lunya's prayers for them to both shut up and just eat their muffins in peace, but at least she got to change the mental score in her brain of 1-0-0 for her and G'raha being the superior couple.

A plate of pineapple buns flew in the air and probably would have cracked over someone's head as Melkoko flung her hands up in frustration, but they were saved just barely by Zhai'a's fumbling hands. "Yeah? Then tell me! Tell me exactly _why_ ye've been dodgin' me for moons, you bleedin' bastard!" 

_"Because!"_ H'mhasi bellowed, almost kicking himself and his chair backwards, "I've been looking for a _ring_ for you, you fool of a Lalafell!"

Lunya planted her face firmly in her husband's elbow when Melkoko dropped her favourite teacup on the floor and _shattered_ the poor thing with some noise halfway between a shriek and a squeal. 

"Oh, Mhasi-Bee!" Melkoko wailed as she flung herself out of her chair to leap in her boyfriend's lap and shower his cheek with kisses. "I'm _so_ sorry I ever doubted ya!"

H'mhasi's anger fell from him quickly as he snuggled her and cooed, " _It's alright, my sweet Melly-Belly,_ " prompting Lalai to mime retching into her sandwich while Zhai'a sunk in his seat in second-hand embarrassment, apparently deciding that the best way to escape this eighth hell they were generating within Lunya's home was directly through the floor.

"If you call me anything remotely like that I'll fry your tail," muttered Lunya beneath the cloying couple's sweetness and her private mourning for her now incomplete tea set. G'raha quickly covered his mouth to stop himself from laugh-spitting all over their lunch.

Fortunately for the four of them, the table once again descended into chaos as H'mhasi looked away from his doting lover long enough to finally take a sip of his tea, only to splutter helplessly when he found himself with a mouth full of sticky honey and absolutely nothing else.


	24. heart of the cards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 23: shuffle
> 
> a glimpse into lunya's old life on pearl lane.

"Ah, sod it," the man cursed as he stumbled away, pockets far lighter than they'd been when he first entered their little alley. Yeyema cheerfully waved him off, tossing his gilpurse to Sirius.

There were banes and boons aplenty in Thanalan's greed-addled and glistening capital. It was a dog-eat-dog city—if you wanted to leave the shadows of Pearl Lane you would have to claw your way out of the gutter on your own. The vulnerable were easily lost, overlooked for its gilded walls and taken advantage of by the elites. But it made for one particularly good thing: very few people wanted to throw a fit over falling prey to a girl of scarcely twelve summers, because if you were stupid enough to bet the moon's earnings on a game with a child in Ul'dah of all places then whose fault could it be but your own?

Of all the ways Yeyema made coin in, card games were easily her favourite. Magic tricks were fun and she did enjoy putting on their little shows, but the novelty wore off pretty fast. Stealing from tourists was risky. Outright _begging_ was humiliating and had her chased off by a Brass Blade more than once, so it was a relief whenever Sirius asked her to bring her cards along before they left their hideout. 

And playing cards made her feel a little closer to home, like she was small(er) again. After all, hands that laid fallow left room for mischief to sprout and her parents were eager to keep her out of it, so she'd grown up on the lap of dealers and in full view of the stacks of chips between the crew. Analyzing her opponent's tells like her uncles had made her confident. A bit more like herself, whoever that was. 

"Dunno if we got enough for Valdis' medicine yet," Sirius mumbled as he counted their earnings, earning a frown from Yeyema. "Maybe Zaya was luckier?"

Doubtful. Their… "guardian" (protector? babysitter?) still hadn't fully wrapped their head around gil as a concept. It didn't help that Zaya was entirely nonverbal and of a race so uncommonly seen in Eorzea that they frightened a passerby or six every time they turned a corner. It was for that reason alone that she and Sirius were in charge of getting gil to keep the little Viera girl at the hideout alive.

Yeyema turned back to her decks. "I'll give up my share."

"No you won't," Sirius snapped. "You already did that last week—"

"Oh, card games!" interrupted their next victim as he squatted down to look down at them both. Stupid Roegadyn. Yeyema beamed up at him pleasantly while Sirius turned down his prickliness a notch. "Taking bets, little one?"

It wasn't the first time she was underestimated for her size or age, and it certainly wasn't going to be the last, but at times like these she didn't quite mind. If adults here had no problems taking money from kids then she'd simply take advantage of it.

Biting down a smirk, Yeyema shuffled her cards.


	25. make me crash, forget my name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 24: beam
> 
> summer lovin, had me a blast

"What if I pretend I don't know how to swim?"

Krile lifted her shades from her nose so G'raha could see her glare, her free hand tensed around her magazine in a sure sign that she was thinking about rolling it up to whack him. "Did you leave your one functioning brain cell on campus or something?"

"I don't know!" her best friend groaned, throwing his hands in the air in defeat as he fell backwards onto the sand. "Maybe she's into men who are stupid! A'satina is!"

"Fair," Sati conceded on Krile's other side, curling up even further beneath Reeses's ratty uni hoodie. Her BLUtooth speaker was planted in the sand next to her chair, cheerily playing old summer tunes over the crash of waves. "But rude."

"You could just, I don't know, hang out with her like a normal person?" Krile pushed her glasses back down and stuck her nose back in her _Kigurumi Katalogue_ issue. "You're _already_ a huge weirdo, why bother pretending?"

G'raha stuck his tongue out at her, though he doubted she was paying attention still. _"Thanks_. _"_

Down by the water, Lunya clung to Zaya's shoulders, the pair determinedly dodging Rjoli's playful splashing. The sea in Gannet Bay was beautiful, sparkling and warmer than the cold ocean surrounding the Sharlayan isles, but the sight paled in comparison to the small woman laughing in the sunlight, grinning ear to ear as her faithful steed of a friend danced out of the way of the terrible pink beast's aquatic assault. G'raha sighed.

"G'raha Tia," came a curt call. He looked up in time for Hanami to roughly thrust a snow cone in his face, the cold tip just brushing his nose before he snagged it from her. "You are _pining_."

He bristled. "I'm—"

From where she was handing out Sati and Krile's drinks, Reese looked over worriedly and said, "I thought he was Sharlayan," causing Sati to snort her piña colada out through her nose and onto her borrowed sweatshirt.

"Idiots," Hanami muttered, intensely fond as she pulled a napkin from the pocket of her shorts and dabbed at the juice on Sati's chest. "Go talk to her, dumbass. The beach means her mood is good. You can compliment her swimsuit."

"Whose swimsuit?" chimed a little voice like fairy bells. Lunya gave them a little wave from her perch on Zaya's shoulders as they approached with Rjoli, all three already soaked with saltwater and the Lalafell's violet eyes twinkling while she accepted her soft serve from Hanami.

Very unsubtly, Krile leaned out of her chair to shove her elbow into G'raha's bicep. 

"—ack, _Krile_ ," he hissed, scrambling for his composure. When Lunya turned her gaze to him, bright with an earnest, adorable curiosity, he could have melted right then and there. "Did you design yours, Lunya? It's really cute." _You're really cute_ is what he didn't say, because just saying this much was making him combust.

G'raha's momentary embarrassment was worth it though because Lunya completely lit up with delight, radiant in a way that he hadn't seen before when the others would compliment her work. If her sunshine smile was at its brightest when she looked only at him for the rest of the afternoon, the others didn't say anything, keeping their knowing laughter among themselves.


	26. let me find you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 25: wish
> 
> lunya goes to wake sleeping beauty.

Her desperate sprint through Mor Dhona is enkindled with a fire beneath her feet, a spirit vessel held to her heart more protectively than anything she has ever carried before. More than her hopes, her dreams, her burdens, the weight of the very world—

Maybe if she were gentler, or patient, or soft, like she's always felt she's never been and yearned to emulate the friends she had that were, she would have stayed longer at the Respite. It is not as if his soul was tearing at the seams of its limits like the Scions' were. She could have afforded a few moments more to help Krile and Rjoli, to wait until the others could come along—though they didn't stop her to begin with, all encouraging her to go, to follow the sun in the east with their smiles if not their words.

(It is funny that he calls her his guiding star and that the family she has built from the ground up are _lodestars_ and _balefires_ and they are all as beacons in the night, bringing those who are lost home, and now she is the one chasing a familiar light—)

Is it wrong for a girl who has only ever given her whole life to _want?_

Her life has been consumed with selflessness and if there is one thing in this world she wants to be selfish about then it is _him,_ and when she gets him back she is never going to let him go. If she was born with a destiny—if there is a cog in the wheel of fate that even she cannot turn—then it has to be one where she was meant to find him, in this lifetime, in the one before it, and in all the lives to come. 

It is an exhausting thing, to climb the endless stairs of the Tower when she's already spent, her near-limitless light pushed to its breaking point just scarcely a day before with no time set aside to recover. Her legs threaten to give out beneath her but she pushes onwards and upwards, through the floors she knows by heart now, over its shimmering stairs and the crystal walls. The throne room is just as it was on the First, the same as it was when they last stood here on the Source over half a decade ago. All that is different is the throne itself. There he slumbers, the king in the mountain, a prince on a throne that once stood as a symbol of ruin but under his hand became a symbol of hope. 

When she places the spirit vessel in his hand and it begins to glow, she doesn't dare to breathe.

It doesn't matter if the soul transference works, she knows, because she will love him anyway. The G'raha Tia of six summers past and the G'raha Tia of a future he made for her are both _Raha_ and she will will love him all the same no matter how he wakes up because—and a crystal in her pocket brands its heat against her heart, reminding her of a woman with hair darker than the midnight sky and a man with eyes that sing of twilight—an old promise to find him again is entwined in her soul, in the core of her very being, in the essence of what makes her herself. 

His eyes open ever so slowly, a crimson dawn breaking over the horizon, searching. When he finds her there he breaks into a smile, mesmerizingly bright as he moves on instinct, more fluid than the soothing rush of waves along the shores of Vylbrand, to reach for her left hand and bring it to his lips, kissing her wedding ring as it gleams in the thin dredges of sunrise, she knows.

"Good morning, sleepyhead!" she weeps as the new day breaks behind them, her voice watery and deliriously overjoyed as his fingers entwine with hers. The sun is dazzling as it ushers them to a brighter dawn together in a future where they never need to be apart again. "'Tis good to see you awake!"

He laughs so brilliantly in the rising morning light, so beautiful even though he's wearing that horrible coeurl print she told him to throw away years ago but he never managed to before he went and put himself to sleep, and they're both crying when she grabs his collar and yanks him down into a kiss. They topple off the throne and she mutters a joyful _ow_ against his lips when her back hits the crystal floor and he whispers a panicked _sorry!_ but she doesn't care, not when he's in her arms again and he's awake and he's hers and neither of them can stop smiling, not when everything they have fought for and sacrificed until now has been so wholly and irreversibly worth it. 

Though sleep has held him for so long he's warm when she curls her hands in his hair and rejoices in his weight pressing down on her, the crushing reality of his presence at her side once more overwhelming next to the lightness of her heart, a heart that could just about soar and leap from her chest to sing. When he breaks away to kiss her forehead, her nose, her lips again, the eternal wind dances through the open throne room, but not even that is strong enough to tear him nor his first words away from her as he grins from ear to ear.

"Good morning, my inspiration! 'Tis good to be awake!" 


	27. through the looking glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 26: when pigs fly
> 
> two warriors of darkness dancing in the moonlight and believing as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
> 
> zaya belongs to @fistsoflightning on tumblr / tiredzaya on ao3!

While there's arguably better times to train in wielding a greatsword than in the dead of the night, the moon waxing full overhead Mor Dhona and its crystal wasteland in full glow in the dark, there are no Warriors in their number more intrinsically attuned to the night than Lunya and Zaya. 

Revenant's Toll is never truly quiet, not even in the depths of the witching hour, and a gentle buzz of chatter from the lingering patrons of the Seventh Heaven follows them out the door and up the hill, toward the little park nestled between the Toll's northern entrance and the pass to Coerthas, their blades gleaming on their backs as they climb the cobbled slope. Lunya wonders if their partners will wake up soon—Raha and Thancred aren't so insecure as to panic if they do without their respective Warriors in their arms, but she keeps a fleet-footed pace regardless, just in case they come searching too early and chide them for sparring at such a ridiculous hour.

(They'll probably sleep in. If she and Zaya are the stars and the moon, the heavens synchronized in their ascent through the welkin, then Raha and Thancred are their suns. It's foolishly sentimental to think so, but she does.)

The park is empty and blessedly so. When Zaya unsheathes Duskshard from their back it's a streak of royal blue, a bolt of levin that flashes in the lamplight before they sink it into the earth, looking at her and her little guillotine (the stupid thing), which just barely comes up to Zaya's hip but completely dwarves herself in size.

 _"Why me?"_ is the first thing her technically-sibling asks, though their hands do not falter in steadiness, rolling over the signs with curiosity rather than apprehension or reluctance. _"You could've asked Hanami."_

Lunya looks at them for a long moment.

 _"Not Hanami,_ " Zaya acquiesces after a second of thought, finishing their grumpy companion's name sign with a good-natured and playful wince. _"Reese."_

"I need to be trained, not _coddled_ ," huffs Lunya. Sure, she has a range of friends she could ask to mentor her in coinciding—not mastering—with her _inner darkness_. Zaya would probably not be the _normal_ first choice, not when Hanami and Reese both wield their greatswords like an extension of themselves, but since when has Lunya, or any of them for that matter, been normal? "'Sides, I'd rather take advice from the one less likely to buy some ugly suit of armor off the rack and just _wear it as is._ "

 _"It's practical."_ There's a smile playing on the edge of Zaya's lips, one they won't let bloom just yet.

Lunya nearly stomps her foot in a fit. "My _boot_ , I'm right here with a needle and designs that are cute _and_ practical and can be mixed and matched and fitted to their own personal aesthetic, but they'd rather dress like a generic folktale knight whose only line is to deliver the news of the king's demise."

The monk's laughter is like a bolt from the blue, electric in sound as their moonglow eyes scrunch with delight as they finally cave to their grin. _"We try not to bother you when we can,"_ they sign. _"Cause problems for you enough with our accidents."_

"I think I'm the one causing problems, these days," she says with a tempest sigh, Tataru's scolding once she returned with Raha from the Tower after abandoning Krile and Rjoli still ringing in her ears. "So I need to figure this out. You _will_ teach me, right?"

 _"You're not causing problems."_ Though they don't say it verbally, the firmness behind it is obvious enough in the scrunch of their brow beneath their facepaint. _"And when have I ever said no to you?"_

 _Plenty of times,_ Lunya thinks, remembering Amh Araeng and all the moons before, thinking of a little girl with hair like sunshine and eyes of crystal and a heart broken long before she really knew it, of desperate pleas and angry shouts to _get it together_ and _she's just a kid! How could you treat her like this! How could you let him treat her like this!_ She swallows the words before she can even consider them, drowning them in the depths where they belong, because Zaya has changed—has come to terms with what lurks in their shadow in a way that she hasn't yet but wants to, and that's why she's here. She knows who Zaya is and what they have done and she still loves them all the same. 

"Do you think I can—" There's just no polite way to say _get used to, y'know, my brain being co-inhabited by a giant shadow dog that's the manifestation of all my trauma_ so she doesn't quite finish. The hesitation that's weighed heavy on her heart for so long doesn't press down as hard these days, and it's been enough for her to accept the darkness in her heart as her own, to acknowledge it's just as essential to her as her name, but she can't help but wonder if she's truly capable of it. Of course, Zaya already knows what she means. 

_"If there's anyone who can, it's you,"_ they sign, leaning against their blade. _"You're really sure you want me to help?"_

There's a rumble in Lunya's heart when she says, "You know my story best." The pitch coiled by her soul murmurs its agreement. "We trust you with it."

Zaya smiles, a toothy thing that scared her the first time she saw it as a child, when they first met not as adventurers who couldn't remember each other but two misfits in the darkest corners of Ul'dah with the world at their throats, looking for someone to depend on in a city that was built on the individual. "Thank y'u," they say out loud, voice rough and endlessly fond as they reach out to ruffle her hair. Though she whines beneath their hand she can't quite keep her own smile off her face. 

With natural ease, Zaya pulls Duskshard from the ground, grasping it with both hands in a stance she's seen a thousand times before. Their shadow ripples beneath them, cast in the fall of the moonlight that hangs over the edges of the rooftops, and ancient eyes stare warmly at her as Valor rises up behind them, whispering _hello_ and _we love you_. 

_"Can you keep up?"_ Zaya signs.

She might have thought it impossible once, watching the shadows of her friends trail longer and longer as they grew beyond what she thought was her reach. In her weakest moments, in the times she gave in to jealousy, to bitterness, she wouldn't have wanted to follow—though her heart, tender and broken, would go anyway, loyal to sisters and brothers and siblings she was bound to not by blood but by pure devotion and an oath to bring each other home. Now, encompassed in the starlight that has always belonged to hers, she thinks that this time she's going to accept the love she's always deserved.

"Of course," Lunya answers naturally as Reflection pools around her, the direwolf's abyssal fur gleaming with pitch. "I'm your little sister, after all."


	28. a sinking feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 27 (extra credit): brazen
> 
> "gran! it's grandpa! they put frogs in him."  
> "what?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lunya as a child, before she was called lunya and before her hair was the colour of moonlight.

Even the rowdiest of the crew has slunk off to bed in some way or another at this hour, leaving the farmhouse in complete darkness and relative silence besides the sifting of the wind through the orchards outside and the sound of the building creaking, "settling into place" as Uncle Merrin says. Yeyema _knows_ she's not supposed to get out of bed once Mama's sung her to sleep, but there's a weird noise in the house and she was having such a nice dream about a big red cat taking her on an adventure and she's feeling terribly upset for being awoken from it.

That's what it is: she's _annoyed_ , like how Auntie gets frowny whenever Uncle Shore doesn't bring treats for her from Linsa Lo-mim-sa, or how Mama makes that big wooshy sound every time Uncle Ashe muddies the kitchen. She is annoyed and _not_ scared, thank you very much, because she's a big girl and big girls do not need enchanted night lights or for Papa to check under the bed for monsters.

Somewhere in the farmhouse, the Noise echoes gutturally, rattling right into her little bones, and if she dives back under her blanket for a second at the sound it's because her plushies are scared, _not her._

She knows what she has to do. Mama and Papa are fast asleep, and so are her uncles and Auntie and Gran and Grandpa and the rest of the crew. There's a monster in her house and none of them are awake to take it down—no one, that is, except herself. The teacher lady at the Guild says she's very, very smart for her age and all the other nice arcanists say she's strong, so there's no reason to wake them up! If she protects them all by herself then they'll _have_ to let her keep her grim-war in her room instead of on a shelf in Uncle Ashe and Uncle Merrin's room, out of her sticky reach because _"it's dangerous to practice arcanima without soup-er-vision."_

Without her grim-war, though, her plan for Hunting and Hitting the Noise becomes much harder. Her stuffed animals are too soft and they're her _friends_ so that rules them out. She saw neat wooden swords at the market when she went to the city with Gran, but when she asked for one Gran went _hrmph!_ and _no grandchild of mine will use any blade but an axe!_ Her toybox looks promising, so she slips out of bed, tugging her blanket along as a cape as quickly as she can. She finds her quarry soon enough—a toy frying pan she was given for Starlight last year, and feeling a bit more confident now with a weapon she carefully gets on her tiptoes and pulls her bedroom door open. 

The rumbling gets louder the further she gets from her room, and she clutches her blanket-cape tighter, definitely _not_ trembling as she peers around the corner. The last two rooms at the end of the hall are the largest bedrooms—the one on the left is her grandma's, and the one on the right is her grandpa's. She swallows. Her grandparents are the strongest people she knows and her Gran is _scary_ , so surely it would be okay to just… to leave them…

But no! She is their granddaughter and she's gonna protect her family no matter what it takes. Squaring her little shoulders, Yeyema stomps down the hall, drawing on the courage her family's taken from the sea, and flings open the door to Grandpa's room. The floor shakes beneath her as she scans the room, taking in what is lit by moonlight only to gasp.

The Noise… is coming _from_ Grandpa.

Yeyema screams, scrambling—no, not away from Grandpa, he's gonna get hurt! The Noise will get him! But no, not toward him! THE NOISE!—only to tangle in her makeshift cape and slip, falling onto her back with a loud _thump_ and an _ow!_ In the dark, she sees the shadowy figure rising on Grandpa's bed with a ghastly roar that nearly has her screaming again as it reaches out, its large hand—

—turning on the lamp at the bedside table, illuminating her very fuzzy grandfather and his striped pyjamas, sitting up in bed and rubbing at his eyes. 

"Oh, Yeyema," Grandpa says as pleasantly as one who has been rudely awakened by a tiny and very energetic Lalafellin granddaughter can. "What’re ye doin' up, lass?"

There's stomping across the hall before the door flings open, Gran bellowing, "WHERE'S THE—WHO'S THE—WHAT'S THE—" with her axe gleaming in hand, cucumber slices stuck to her cheeks, before she stops and stares at the little girl lying flat on the floorboards. "Yeyema."

Oh no. Yeyema knows _that_ look. Gran's gonna pick her up by the collar and march her back to her room, but she can't go yet because—

"There's a Noise!" Yeyema shouts in defense as she jumps up, clenching her little fists into Grandpa's mattress and pulling herself up onto his big Hrothgar-sized bed. Grandpa bends toward her like he's gonna pick her up, but if he tries she's gonna smack his paw because she doesn't need his help. (She doesn't see it, but Gran shakes her head behind her, glaring daggers at Grandpa for trying to interfere.) "It's big and rumbly like, like a, storm, but not rainyand it woke me up and made my room shake and it scared Quartermaster Kitty but not Captain Wowoof because _captains don't get scared Auntie said so—"_

"Normal lasses don't play _pirates_ with their dolls, I think," Gran mutters as she takes a seat on the bed.

"Did Toru not check for monsters beneath yer bed?" Grandpa asks as he lets Yeyema climb into his lap, and she puffs her cheeks with air and glares at him as intimidatingly as she can, just like how Uncle Ashe taught her. "Right. Yer too big for that now."

Gran sighs. "Ye came up three sheets to the wind an’ practically dead on yer feet, Berithgar. I bet 'twas yer _snorin_ '."

So caught up in her insistent thoughts that she _is_ a big girl, Grandpa just needs to be protected and that's the _only_ reason she is snuggling into his warm fur, Yeyema doesn't quite catch it. She looks back and forth between her grandparents. "Hm?"

"Er," Grandpa says, scratching at his chin. "I s'ppose I got a frog in me?"

"Grandpa…" Yeyema gapes, scrambling over to Gran with her luminous eyes swelling with tears as Gran grumbles _now ye've done it_. "You have _FROGS_ IN YOU?"

Down in the kitchen, ex-bos'n-turned-tiller Oswin slams his head into the table, gripping his half-empty tankard. His crewmates are strewn around him in varying states of unconscious and intoxicated, but he imagines they'll all wake up soon enough if the calamitous wailing of their Little Lady Luck and their captain-boss's panicked assuages upstairs gets any louder. 


	29. forgive and forget-me-not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 28: irenic
> 
> many years into the future, lunya's daughter has her first fight with her best friend.

When the forget-me-nots at the bottom of the porch steps began to bloom it always signaled the arrival of spring. Nynya's mama complained about them each year, saying if they weren't kept under control they'd take over the whole Lavender Beds someday, but she never did anything to really get rid of them. _They remind me of someone_ , she always said, violet eyes scrunching with affection. Even now as she beckoned Nynya over to the gazebo, Mama could only look at the ones stuck around her feline ears with an exasperated fondness. 

"I hope it's _only_ the wildflowers you've been picking," Mama said with a playful glare as Nynya climbed up on the bench next to her, still steadily clicking away with her needles, a pair of Elezen-baby-sized socks forming on her lap.

"Of course, Mama!" She knew better than to try now that she was old enough to recognize that plucking her mama's garden willy-nilly would get her tickled to death. Her little sisters were blessed with innocence still, not yet of the age to get more than a sigh when they toddled to their parents with bouquets of plucked hydrangeas and lilies in their hands.

Mama reached out and tweaked the tip of Nynya's ear. "So, my little bean sprout, what's this I've been hearing about you fighting with Oki?" 

Nynya rubbed at her wrist, thinking of her best friend's last visit and the horrible, disastrous ending to it. Mama and Papa were both out that day, so she hoped they wouldn't find out, but…

"Who told you?" she asked meekly, ears flat with shame. 

"Mari is a _tattletale_ ," Mama reminded her with a laugh. "None of you kids know how to keep a secret."

Great. _All_ their friends knew they had a fight, then, and their parents too. Nynya groaned, wondering how mad Mama would be if she dug a hole in the sunflower patch and made it her home. "I didn't _wanna_ fight with Oki." 

With a hum, Mama slipped the completed socks off her needles. They were probably a gift for Aunt Reese. "I know you didn't, sweetheart. Did you know that when we were younger I used to get in a lot of arguments?"

Nynya wrinkled her nose, unable to picture it. Mama was always so patient with her and her siblings and while she didn't know _all_ the stories she knew that Mama and the friends who came over for dinner every week were all very close after years and years and years of knowing each other, more years than Nynya had even been alive or could count on her fingers. They poked fun at each other all the time but she couldn't ever remember Mama raising her voice at one of her friends in genuine anger.

"Zaya and I… well, we didn't _fight_ , because of circumstances," Mama said thoughtfully as she set the socks in the basket at her feet. When she sat back up, she was holding ribbons in hand. "But your Uncle Thancred caused a lot of problems for us back in the day."

"...Did you both like him or something?" asked Nynya, who distinctly remembered plots like that from the novels strewn around Mari's house, the ones the young Lady de Borel very boldly announced belonged to her dad (and Nynya never thought it was Aunt Hanami who owned them to begin with, but it was still surprising regardless).

"No, _ew_." Mama cringed as she tugged Nynya closer. "Absolutely not. I've only ever had eyes for your father. Thancred isn't even a _fraction_ as cute and you may tell him I said that the next time you visit Zaya's house." Nynya giggled, earning a light scold from her mom as her shaking shoulders jostled the start of a braid in her Mama's hands. "Oki has an older sister. She's technically yours too, as well as Mari's, since she was like a daughter to all of us—but she was all but legally Thancred and Zaya's. Her name is Ryne."

Nynya frowned, fighting the urge to turn around and yoink her mother's handiwork out of her plaiting hands. "How come I've never heard of her?"

"Because talking about her makes Thancred sad," she heard Mama sigh. "She's a world away from us now." (And later, Nynya would learn that Mama meant it _literally_.) "He writes letters and sends gifts to her often but they haven't seen each other in years, no matter how strongly they want to. Y'know, when we first met her, Ryne didn't know what a hug was."

"She didn't?" Nynya gasped, heart swelling with pity for this sister she never met. Her mom and dad gave the _best_ hugs, so she hoped Mama gave one to Ryne too. 

While she didn't see it, she could sense Mama shaking her head behind her, and in the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of starlight hair ruffling in a self-made breeze. "She really didn't. Thancred wasn't always a good dad. I was very angry with him for a very long time—all of us were, except… well. At any rate, Hanami punched him for it."

Now _that_ was something Nynya could see. Aunt Hanami and Uncle Thancred struck her as a pair of friends that would wrestle each other regularly if it wouldn't immediately give them back pain and complaints of their old age. Papa also gave her the impression of someone who would pick a fight with her scariest aunt if it weren't for Mama holding him back. 

"I was unhappy with Zaya too at the same time," Mama continued, sounding more and more distant as she did. "But eventually they both changed and for the better and we all made up. We always do. That's the strength of our bond and the nature of people who want to grow together. We came to terms with our anger and our sadness and worked to compromise and to make amends. The future we wanted to see needed us to." 

When she turned Nynya back around, she was holding a small mirror in her hands. Nynya tilted her head, not quite recognizing the little girl reflected back at her. The ribbons braided by her ears and entwined with her forget-me-nots shimmered in the sunlight that reached the gazebo, gold and blue and fancier than what Papa would normally let her wear because she tended to ruin things like this in her antics. In that reflection, she felt she looked a bit more like Mama now, graceful and full of poise, a long-held ideal that was a bit more reachable in the moment. Maybe she was capable of finding forgiveness in her heart too. 

Patting her hand, Mama said, "Will you tell me what you and Oki fought over?" 

Nynya straightened her shoulders, taking a deep breath. 

"I told her about Luneth's magic studies and that he's super good at math even though it means he won't play with me as much because he's always studying at Aunt Nini's place," she told Mama, gravely serious, because the temptation of _books_ and _sweets_ at their auntie's house despite the scary skulking of Mr. Wyrmblood on the roof was very important to Luneth so it had to be to her too, even if she wouldn't tell him so to his face because she was _very_ jealous that he got to visit Aunt Nini more than her these days (oh! But maybe if she learned black magic…). "And Oki said Audrey is a _better brother_ than Luneth because he's not a huge nerd, so I said that she and Audrey are both too dumb to read even a single word of Luneth's books, and then we yelled at each other a _lot_." 

Mama nodded in understanding, though she wore the tired look she got whenever they found Papa taking a catnap up in a tree with one or _both_ of Nynya's little sisters in his arms. "While it's good of you to defend your brother from name-calling—"

"Luneth _is_ a nerd," Nynya clarified, and Mama coughed what sounded suspiciously like a laugh into her elbow. "But only _I_ can say that. And he's way better than Audrey!"

"You like Audrey, right?"

"Well, yeah." Nynya puffed her cheeks. She didn't _really_ think Audrey was dumb, and he was plenty of fun to play with. "But—"

"And you wouldn't want to have him as a brother over Luneth."

"No way!"

Mama took Nynya's chin in her hand and tilted her face up, forcing Nynya to look at her. "I think Luneth is the best brother for _you_ and Audrey is the best brother for Oki." Her eyes were sparkling, a hint of mirth there that Nynya knew could often be found in her own. "And the four of you are all very smart in your own ways. Could it be that neither of you were wrong about having a good brother, little sprout?" 

As Nynya thought about it there was a flash beyond the garden gates, a sharp spark of levin and the sweet scent of ozone sweeping in as two Au Ra clad in royal blue teleported into the Lavender Beds. Zaya had a hand on their daughter's head, firm and immovable as they steered a reluctant and grumbling Oki into the yard.

"Mama," Nynya said, grabbing her mother's sleeve before she could hop off the bench. "What was the future you wanted to see?"

Humming a tune Nynya used to hear as a lullaby— _"a prayer to keep us ever by your side"_ —Mama smiled. "One where the most children like you and Oki would have to worry about is how to apologize for being too competitive," she said. "Think about what I told you, Nynya." 

And Mama pressed a kiss to her forehead before she descended into the garden first, greeting her technically-sibling and technically-niece with a brilliant smile and open arms, leaving Nynya to slowly follow, picking forget-me-nots—the same flower Zaya wore in their hair, paired with a pink ribbon—from her hair in wonder.


	30. the dawn of a new day waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 29: paternal
> 
> the future is bright. 
> 
> [post-canon]

The second time G'raha Tia held his son he thought his heart might burst from his chest. 

His children were precious, beautiful little things, nearly small enough to fit perfectly into the palms of his hands, and despite all his fears over the last nine moons they were in perfect health, wailing as loud as the far-from-forgotten chorus of cheers he remembered from the Crystarium. Their mother was fine too, her face still radiant in spite of its exhaustion as she pressed against his thigh, overtaken by sleep at last. Despite the chaos of it hardly a bell ago, peace had overtaken the bedroom, the noise given way to a soothing spring breeze outside and the warm hum of a traditional Cieldalaen lullaby as his mother-in-law sang to his daughter across the room.

He wasn't quite sure when it started, but as he cradled Luneth close to his chest the muslin swaddling grew dotted with saltwater. A small gasp cut the sweet song in twain as Lilina caught sight of the tears rolling down to his chin and she reached out to grab her husband's sleeve, urging him to go over.

"You alright, son?" Toru asked quietly when he approached to place a firm hand on G'raha's elbow—the highest point that the Lalafellin man could reach while standing beside the bed, an echo of a reassuring grasp on the shoulder—but G'raha didn't know how to answer, a tempest gale welling in his throat at the final word. 

Neither of the children were born with Lunya's white hair, though he knew to expect it when told that hers had been pitch black in her childhood, like Lilina's and now Luneth's. He also knew they would be small, far smaller than all the Crystarium's children he personally named and blessed as the Exarch by their dual heritage, and boast an innate magical talent.

What he hadn't considered was their eyes. 

The gift Doga and Unei bestowed him was meant to be ephemeral—bound to a few years of his lifetime at most, he once assumed in his youth. But when Luneth and Nynya both opened their eyes for the first time, a familiar vermilion left G'raha thunderstruck.

Had he cursed his own children to face what he did?

His parents _tried_ to keep him safe, but a position as the G tribe's nunh only went so far in authority and his mother's protective grip on him severed him further from his half-siblings, and they could not keep every torment from slipping through the cracks. Would he fall to the well-intentioned mistakes of his parents before him? Would his children resent him for passing on the royal brand, or would they become obsessed with it as he had, chasing a dream beyond the reaches of time so far that he forgot to live in the present? Was he even capable of being a good father when he was hardly even a good _grandfather_ to Lyna, unable to leave her with more than a feeble half-goodbye? 

"They have my eyes," G'raha said quietly.

"And what a wonderful colour they are," Lilina cooed as she rocked her granddaughter gently, though she never looked away from him as she did. The intensity of her gaze was the same as her daughter's, relentlessly sincere in their clarity. "A gift from a man who will make an incredible father."

"Will I?" he asked, feeling weaker than he ever had before as Luneth squirmed in his arms, mewling quietly. "I have passed on quite the burden to them."

"A _gift_ ," Lilina repeated adamantly with the full force of a storm. "Do you resent your own?"

His answer was instant, on his tongue before he could summon it. "Never." How could he when it gave him a way to save the lives of Lunya and millions more, when it brought hope to Norvrandt to hold out a hundred years longer? When it was the symbol of a love that withstood calamities to fulfill an ancient wish? When his father once called him his pride and joy?

"Yeyema has loved you regardless," Toru reminded him, looking at the woman who remained curled against G'raha's side, her devotion shining on her left hand and in the way she clung to him even in her sleep. "And so have we."

 _"They're beautiful,"_ Lunya would still tell him even when he was long past the days when he desperately needed reassurance that his eyes were not something wrong or ugly, always more honest with him than she dared to be with anyone else, so much that he fell in love with her over and over and over again. _"Like dawn over the Merlthor."_

G'raha looked down at the bundle in his arms. Luneth gurgled, his kitten ears twitching as his father reached down to gently touch his nose, ruby eyes wide. In his son's sanguine eyes he could see the future, bright and beautiful and full of potential, and he thought that this might have been what his own father saw in him.

Toru looked back at Lilina, who shook her head with a smile.


	31. katawaredoki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 30 (finale): splinter
> 
> not everything stays.
> 
> [kimi no na wa au]

"Will you forget me when we wake up?"

Bile burns Lunya's throat when she says it, watching as the dying twilight rolls down G'raha's face and chest. She's certain that this is too good to be true—this impossible meeting of theirs, in the aching distance between day and night and surrounded by naught but twilight for endless malms. It won't last forever; the starshower will take her from him in one way or another. But he has given her a chance to choose.

"Who says this is a dream?" G'raha scoffs as he flicks at her forehead, and Lunya thinks that if she wasn't perilously in love with him and about to disappear she'd stomp on his foot. "Am I only so brave as to come save you in your imagination?"

She laughs, fighting the tremor of it on her tongue. "You have my thanks, crimson knight."

Though there's urgency in his eyes, his smile is lazy, playful as he takes her hand (and if her breath catches he doesn't tease her) and pulls a pen from his pocket. "But you have a point, my lady. Here. Let's write each other's names down, just in case."

There's no need to focus on his writing, she thinks, because right now she knows for certain that this is her G'raha Tia and that they've spent the last moon swapping bodies and she can't imagine herself without him now that he's here. When his eyes flick back up to hers, startlingly and enchantingly crimson, she almost forgets to recoil in embarrassment.

G'raha smiles and she decides that if she's going to die then this will be the final blessed memory she'll take to her grave.

But that's why he's here, isn't he? To save her and more from their fate. She takes the pen from his hands, strokes the first letter of her name in his hand—

The half-light sputters out.

* * *

She knows where she's going but she doesn't know what brought her here. They're running out of time and while Zaya's enthusiasm over setting off a _bomb_ in the power station went over well they haven't convinced anyone to actually get out of the town yet and she's starting to lose hope. 

When she stumbles on the hem of her dress and crashes her knee into the pavement she thinks she might cry, because the red ribbon in her hair flutters loose and she realizes she's already forgotten despite how desperately she didn't want to. 

_Who are you_? she wants to scream. _What's your name?_

When she uncurls her fist, past the red crescents she's dug with her nails, his name isn't there.

 _I love you_ says the writing on her hand instead, searing an infernal heat to her broken and elated heart.

"How am I supposed to remember you with this, stupid?" she weeps while grinning ear to ear, yet she picks herself and her bloody knee up and she runs. If he'd have her forget his name then she'll remember the strength of his love, and that alone is enough to keep her going past stopping points she didn't knew she had.

* * *

Years later, standing on the deck of the boat and looking out across the skyline at the rising skyscrapers of Mor Dhona, the wind tangling in her hair and her red ribbon, Lunya wonders what she's searching for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> iiiiiits over isnt it? isnt it? isnt it overrrrrr


End file.
